News EPFL

Tracking micropollutants in Lake Geneva

Published:25.10.13 — Antibiotics, urban pesticides, and other contaminants accumulate where wastewater is released into Lake Geneva. Using computer simulations, EPFL researchers have shown that the risk they pose is highest during summer and that they degrade most efficiently during the winter.

Angry Birds - The Rise of the Machines

Published:24.10.13 — An EPFL team has won an international artificial intelligence competition with software able to reproduce a human-like way of playing the famous video game.

A natural boost for MRI scans

Published:22.10.13 — Using an innocuous agent that is already naturally produced in the body, EPFL researchers have developed a breakthrough method that can make contrast-enhanced MRI safer and cheaper.

Twenty-two thousand trips around the planet

Published:21.10.13 — Four years after its launch, Swisscube, the small satellite developed by EPFL’s Space Center, is still in operation. Some of the technological choices made and considered audacious at the time have yielded valuable lessons for building future spacecraft.

Using mathematics for predicting the chances of a Kickstarter project

Published:18.10.13 — Vincent Etter, doctoral student in communication systems, has developed an analysis tool for projects seeking for funding in the Kickstarter website. After a few hours, it is capable of predicting with amazing accuracy whether the submitted project will succeed or fail.

Using heat to make magnets

Published:17.10.13 — EPFL scientists have provided the first evidence ever that it is possible to generate a magnetic field by using heat instead of electricity. The phenomenon is referred to as the Magnetic Seebeck effect or ‘thermomagnetism’.

The Matterhorn like you've never seen it

Published:15.10.13 — Two EPFL spin-offs, senseFly and Pix4D, have modeled the Matterhorn in 3D, at a level of detail never before achieved. It took senseFly’s ultralight drones just six hours to snap the high altitude photographs that were needed to build the model.