Innovative mechanical system makes it easy to turn bedridden patients

Published:02.02.21 — A mechanical system developed at EPFL’s Instant-Lab halves the number of hospital staff needed to turn coma patients and makes the task less physically demanding. It has won the approval of the doctors and nurses who tested the system on dummies.

Parental control apps behaving badly

Published:01.02.21 — Researchers from EPFL and Spain’s IMDEA Software Institute and IMDEA Networks Institute, have found that many parental control applications collect and share data without consent, and fail to comply with regulatory requirements.

Using science to explore a 60-year-old Russian mystery

Published:28.01.21 — Researchers from EPFL and ETH Zurich have conducted an original scientific study that puts forth a plausible explanation for the mysterious 1959 death of nine hikers in the Ural Mountains in the former Soviet Union. The tragic Dyatlov Pass Incident, as it came to be called, has spawned a number of theories, from murderous Yeti to secret military experiments. 

New treatment helps patients with a spinal cord injury

Published:28.01.21 — Spinal cord injuries disrupt the mechanism by which our bodies regulate blood pressure. A team of Swiss and Canadian scientists have developed a treatment that allows patients to regain control of their blood pressure, using targeted electrical spinal-cord stimulation. No medication is required. The team’s findings were published today in Nature.

Major discovery helps explain coral bleaching

Published:27.01.21 — An EPFL scientist has made a major breakthrough in the understanding of coral bleaching – a process that causes corals to lose their color and eventually leads to their death. The process is triggered by warmer ocean temperatures, and, according to the study, it begins much earlier than previously thought. The bleaching apparently results from a disturbance in the metabolic equilibrium between corals and their symbiotic algae, which feed them and give them their color. 

Physics challenges the optimal size of parliaments

Published:26.01.21 — Analyzing a classic paper that has influenced the size of parliaments for almost half a century, an EPFL physicist discovers major flaws with its methodology, challenges its fundamental assumptions, and calls for a complete and careful re-think of its government-governing rule.

Lasers and virtual reality to revolutionize watch-crystal engraving

Published:25.01.21 — EPFL engineers teamed up with luxury watchmaker Vacheron Constantin to develop an innovative system that uses lasers to create 3D sculptures within sapphire watch crystals.