science wire

Kevin Turani-I-Belloto has developed a low-cost method for breaking down ammonia to produce hydrogen.

Physicists at EPFL explore different AI learning methods, which can lead to smarter and more efficient models. In an era where artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming industries from healthcare to finance, understanding how these digital brains learn is more crucial than ever. Now, two researchers from EPFL, Antonia Sclocchi and Matthieu Wyart, have shed light on this process, focusing on a popular method known as Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD).

Five million rooftops in Switzerland - more than half of the nationwide total - are suitable for generating power.

Scientists uncover how cancer cells use certain proteins to shield themselves from immune attacks, offering new treatment perspectives with immediate application. A study led by the group of Didier Trono at EPFL has revealed a crucial survival tactic employed by cancer cells. The scientists have identified a group of proteins, known as "KRAB zinc finger proteins" (KZFPs), that help cancer cells maintain genetic stability and avoid immune system detection.

Exploring the climate crisis with Jérôme Chappellaz, environmental scientist and academic director of ALPOLE at EPFL.

With its secretariat hosted at EPFL, the Square Kilometer Array Switzerland (SKACH) consortium is celebrating two years' membership of a global project to develop the largest scientific facility ever built by humankind.

An EPFL Master's student in civil engineering has evaluated the effectiveness of new computer-based methods for inspecting potentially dangerous cracks in concrete. A crucial aspect of civil engineering is determining the exact condition of cracks in concrete bridges, dams, tunnels and other types of infrastructure.

Grégoire Courtine, Jocelyne Bloch and their research team have been breaking new ground in the treatment of neurological disorders for over a decade. Here's a look at some of the promising new therapies they've developed. A video of a Parkinson's patient went viral in early November. It showed how Marc, 62, was able to walk almost normally again - rather than "freezing" at every doorstep - thanks to a neural implant.

We published nearly 300 news articles on EPFL's homepage in 2023, detailing the latest developments in science, academics, student life, startups and EPFL in general.

EPFL's Habitat Research Center has created the first atlas of Paris landscapes, after winning a request for proposals by the French government and the City of Paris.

18% of Ukraine's scientists have fled due to the war and research capacity is down 20%, according to researchers in a study where they urge stakeholders to plan future policies to ensure the return of talent for rebuilding Ukraine.

ETH Zurich and EPFL are launching the "Swiss AI Initiative", whose purpose is to position Switzerland as a leading global hub for the development and implementation of transparent and reliable artificial intelligence (AI).

Researchers have just released Meditron, the world's best performing open source Large Language Model tailored to the medical field designed to help guide clinical decision-making. Large language models (LLMs) are deep learning algorithms trained on vast amounts of text to learn billions of mathematical relationships between words (also called 'parameters').

The ARRAKHIS consortium, for which EPFL has the science lead, has just successfully passed the mission definition review of the project, a very important first milestone towards full completion of the mission preparation.

Cut/Paste , a new exhibition at EPFL Pavilions , Pavilion A, delves into the history of comics and showcases how artificial intelligence is changing the art and adapting classic 1950s narratives for today's varied mediums.

Today, half of the world's population lives in urban areas. This is giving rise to major challenges in terms of securing a sustainable future - a topic that will be explored during the World Cities Day on 31 October. Here is an overview of EPFL research carried out in this field. For most of us, 31 October is Halloween.

Today, half of the world's population lives in urban areas. This is giving rise to major challenges in terms of securing a sustainable future - a topic that will be explored during the World Cities Day on 31 October.

GreenFjord is a four-year research program intended to investigate how climate change is affecting ecosystems in southern Greenland.

GreenFjord is a four-year research program intended to investigate how climate change is affecting ecosystems in southern Greenland.

Every year over a billion tons of food worldwide are thrown away or perish, at a hefty environmental and climate cost.

Researchers at EPFL have uncovered a fundamental flaw in the training of machine learning systems and elaborated a new formulation for strengthening them against adversarial attacks.

EPFL is collaborating with academic and industrial partners to develop a cardiac intervention simulator. This platform is designed to train interventionalists in much the same way as flight simulators are used to train pilots. More and more cardiac interventions are now performed by inserting a small tube called a catheter into a blood vessel in the arm or groin, and from there into the heart chambers.

Physicist Lesya Shchutska, EPFL professor and winner of the Swiss Science Prize Latsis 2023, is paving the way for the discovery of new particles.

STUDENT PROJECTS - The Neosens project proposes a sepsis detection system for newborn babies in lowand middle-income countries, while MossStandard is developing a prototype of air purifier based on plant moss.

STUDENT PROJECT - Bénédicte Lunven just finished her bacherlor's degree and already has a foot in the sustainable economy door.

Platforms like ChatGPT are already changing the world. From healthcare to the arts and the way we work, how we can ensure AI and Machine Learning benefit all of society? World renowned experts have gathered at EPFL today to explore this topic.

For his semester's project, Constant Panisset is developing a cheap, robust and portable device that can turn water into a disinfectant via the principle of plasma activated water.

Master's project series (7). Donato Kofel has quantified the positive and negative effects of trees on outdoor air quality in Geneva Canton.

STUDENT PROJECT - As part of the Assistive Technologies Challenge, EPFL students developed two apps to help people with low or no vision: one app orally communicates the information contained in a box of medicine and the other helps them find empty seats on public transport.

STUDENT PROJECT - For her EPFL Master's project in civil engineering, Gaelle Abi Younes examined why on-demand buses have met with only limited success. She used technical and financial models to show how they could become a genuine alternative to cars in outlying areas. Thanks to the ubiquity of smartphones, we now have a wide range of on-demand services to choose from for traveling short distances: bike-sharing programs, ridesharing, Uber, Lyft and more.

STUDENT PROJECT - Charlyne Bürki explored the link between dementia and physical inactivity by comparing the results of subjective and objective studies. Her research uncovered some surprising findings - and led her to an indisputable conclusion.

The team of students is working on a unique prototype that uses graphene membranes combined with a porous, sponge-like material to pull carbon from the atmosphere.

STUDENT PROJECT - Intelligent robots - for search and rescue, exploration and surveillance - are a new and challenging field. Unique and versatile, could robot snakes advance the abilities of machines in these fields? Serpentine robots are a ground-breaking innovation in robotics. These flexible and slithering machines excel at navigating complex and confined spaces, offering immense potential in various fields.

Since the start of this year, a suite of instruments has been hard at work detecting a broad spectrum of aerosols at the MeteoSwiss weather station in Payerne, in Vaud Canton.

For their project -The Armenian presence at the Montreux Jazz Festival - A study of the Tigran Hamasyan Quintet concert in 2014-, Léandre Guy and Basile Tornare explored what exoticism means in music and the limits of genres.

STUDENT PROJECTS - Fourteen mechanical engineering students spent a semester getting inside the head of Leonardo da Vinci. Using his drawings from the 15th and 16th centuries, the teams built ingenious machines - altering the design in some cases - in order to better understand how they worked. The "Da Vinci Project," a concurrent engineering project devised by Prof. Pedro Reis, created a buzz of excitement among the three participating teams of final-year Bachelor's students.

EPFL spin-off Artiria has developed a wire with a guidable tip that makes it easier for neurosurgeons to navigate the dense network of cerebral arteries and get to the source of strokes.

EPFL conducted a survey of its community's health and well-being in November 2022, with the goal of pinpointing needs in this area and developing practical measures to address them.