In the Media - July 2024

Extreme blasts from Sun once in thousand years can be catastrophic to life on Earth

external pageAbout every thousand years an extreme blast from the Sun¡¯s surface ¡°like a searchlight into space¡± can severely disrupt the Earth¡¯s ozone layer and impact all life on Earth, a new study warns...This extreme ¡°solar particle event¡± can expose people to high levels of harmful UV radiation, causing high cancer rates, and even lead to changes in global climate, researchers, including those from ETH, Z¨¹rich say.call_made

Also reported in...

external pageYahoo! Newscall_made

Busting five myths about eco-friendly eating

external pageBianca Wassmann, Singapore-ETH Centre and ETH Zurich in Singapore writes about..."while people are increasingly willing to spend more on these labels, there is often not enough consideration of how much these features actually contribute to a food¡¯s environmental sustainability."call_made

If alien terraforming emits greenhouse gases, our telescopes could detect it

external page"The long lifetime makes these gases excellent technosignatures to systematically search for in comparison to shorter-lived signals," study co-author Daniel Angerhausen of ETH Z¨¹rich said in another statement. "These signatures might even outlive their civilization if their geoengineering experiments were to fail."call_made

Also reported in...external pagecall_made

external pageYahoo! Newscall_made

Meteorites the size of basketballs hit Mars almost every day

external page¡°This rate was about five times higher than the number estimated from orbital imagery alone,¡± says G¨¦raldine Zenh?usern of ETH Zurich, who co-led the study. ¡°Aligned with orbital imagery, our findings demonstrate that seismology is an excellent tool for measuring impact rates.¡±call_made

Also reported in...

external pageMashable Middle Eastcall_made

external pageEarth.comcall_made

external pageSciTech Dailycall_made

external pageTech Exploristcall_made

Scarce Alien Civilizations Probably the Reason Why Extraterrestrials Haven¡¯t Contacted Humans Yet

external pageAn alien civilization's existence is "so rare" that we have little chance of communicating with them, according to Taras Gerya, a geophysicist at the research university ETH Zurich in Switzerland and one of the study's authors. He compared the prospect of an alien civilization to "winning the lottery."call_made

Also reported in...

external pageMashable Middle Eastcall_made

external pageAstrobiology.comcall_made

external pageBioengineercall_made

external pageScience Newscall_made

external pageScience Magazinecall_made

An alternative way to manipulate quantum states

external pagePietro Gambardella and his collaborators at ETH Zurich now show that such spin-polarized currents can also be used to control the quantum states of single electron spins. Their results, which have just been published in the scientific journal Science, could be used in different technologies in the future, for instance in the control of quantum states of quantum bits (qubits).call_made

Also reported in...

external pageEarth.comcall_made

external pageScience Magazinecall_made

'Nearly sustainable' hydrogen could cut ammonia production emissions by 95%

external pageThe study's lead author is Stefano Mingolla, a doctoral student at HKUST. He worked for six months in the group led by Giovanni Sansavini, Professor at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at ETH Zurich. "If you use almost green hydrogen to produce ammonia, you can achieve a lot very quickly¡ªit's low-hanging fruit," Sansavini says.call_made

Researchers Develop Lightning-Fast Algorithms for Dynamic Networks

external pageResearchers at ETH Zurich have developed lightning-fast algorithms for solving complex network flow problems, which can be used to tackle dynamic networks that change quickly, such as molecules or the brain in biology, or human friendships...The team, led by Rasmus Kyng and including Maximilian Probst Gutenberg, has created an almost-linear-time algorithm that solves the minimum-cost maximum-flow problem for networks that incrementally change as new connections are added. This breakthrough can be used to speed up computations in a wide range of applications, from traffic flow to electrical grids.call_made

Changing The Gatekeepers in Switzerland: Democratizing Access to Silicon Valley and Giving New Meaning to Impact Investing

Walter Knabenhans is best known for his role as the former Chairman and CEO of Julius Baer Group where he was renowned for his astute leadership and strategic acumen...While his career was deeply rooted in finance, Walter's interest in Silicon Valley stemmed from a love of engineering and technology that he didn't have the opportunity to fully explore in his first act...Walter completed his academic education at ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich, earning a Master's degree in Engineering and Business Administration summa cum laude. Walter's first love was always engineering and technology. "I have always approached problems as an engineer first and a business person second," he explained.

From Fungi to Foundations: Mycelium in construction

external pageMycoTree, completed in 2017, is a pioneering mycelium structure located in Seoul, South Korea. Designed by the Block Research Group and the Chair of Sustainable Construction at ETH Zurich, this installation demonstrates the structural capabilities of mycelium in construction.call_made