Certifying planes for biomass: EPFL works with Boeing
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – EPFL, the federal polytechnic institute in Lausanne and Boeing have jointly created this week a new research initiative, called the Sustainable Biomass Consortium.
Its focus is on “increasing collaboration between voluntary standards and regulatory requirements for biomass used to create jet fuel and bioenergy for other sectors.
The consortium also will seek to lower overall sustainability certification costs.,” according to a joint statement.
Biomass is a renewable energy source, often plant matter.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – (video) The Blue Brain project at EPFL has refuted the centuries-old belief that the human brain may start life as a blank slate, enriched and developed through experience alone, findings which are potentially of great significance for treatment of neurological disorders. The findings appear to be “common across animals”, says the research team.
EPFL’s researchers have demonstrated that “small clusters of pyramidal neurons in the neocortex interconnect according to a set of immutable and relatively simple rules”, the university says in a press release. In other words, the clusters are basic building blocks that contain within them “a kind of fundamental, innate knowledge”.
Experience builds on these clusters, each of which contains about 50 neurons.
The findings were published ahead of the print edition 7 March in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. The authors, under the lead of Blue Brain project head Henry Markram, write in their abstract:
“Neuronal circuitry is often considered a clean slate that can be dynamically and arbitrarily molded by experience. However, when we investigated synaptic connectivity in groups of pyramidal neurons in the neocortex, we found that both connectivity and synaptic weights were surprisingly predictable. . .
“We speculate that these elementary neuronal groups are prescribed Lego-like building blocks of perception and that acquired memory relies more on combining these elementary assemblies into higher-order constructs.”
The EPFL argues that “the discovery redistributes the balance between innate and acquired”, a considerable advance in our understanding of how the brain works:
Read more…
EPFL Brain Mind Institute shows role of lactate in memory
EPFL students, counting on memory
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The number of people with Alzheimers is steadily increasing, prompting fears of living with a crippled memory, or even dying from Alzheimers, which became the sixth leading cause of death in the US in May 2010. Researchers in several countries have set their sights on various aspects of cell life to get to the source of memory and to understand how, biologically, it functions.
Stem cell research is making it possible to grow, in the laboratory, basal forebrain cholinergic neurons (BFCN), a type of nerve cell lost when Alzheimers disease begins to develop, British media reported Monday 7 March. The research could, in the distant future, lead to therapies. It is the latest in a series of efforts to pinpoint key cells that affect the disease.
Astrocytes use lactate to feed neurons
A surprising cell finding is now opening thanks to recent discoveries at the EPFL Brain Mind Institute in Lausanne and Mt Sinai School of Medicine in New York, working together. In a paper published 4 March in the journal Cell, the two show the importance to memory of astrocytes in memorization.
“These cells, which exist in very large quantities in the brain (they are more numerous than the neurons) and which we know are found at the interface between the blood system and the synapses, turn out to be a supplier of energy for the neurons. They feed them with lactate, a ‘cousin’ of glucose in that it originates from the same precursor–glycogen–of which a stock is present in these star-shaped cells. The researchers have been able to prove that this lactate was an indispensable condition for memorization processes to occur.”
The research holds out hope that one day it may be possible to artificially stimulate memory “by acting on the production and transportation of this lactate”. For now, it is leading EPFL researchers under Pierre Magistretti, director of the Brain Mind Institute, in new directions. “The interest for the astrocytes and lactate, which have not been the object of significant study, will certainly increase over the next few years,” says Magistretti.
Ed. note: International Brain Week is marked in Lausanne by a series of lectures open to and aimed at the general public, mostly in French, from nutrition and the brain to understanding synapses: programme.
Mir submersibles, made in Russia, have been used for numerous scientific missions in the Arctic and Lake Baikal. They were also used to film the hulk of the Titanic for James Cameron's film about the sinking of the ship. They will be used in Lake Geneva to help scientists better understand western Europe's largest lake (source: EPFL).
Geneva and Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Russian Mir submersibles will soon populate the depths of Lake Geneva, the EPFL, the Swiss federal polytechnic institute in Lausanne announced Tuesday 1 March. Fifteen teams from five countries will carry out field research using the submersibles, from June 2011 to August, in a project dubbed elemo.
Geology, biology (especially micro-pollutants and bacteriology) and physics projects will be undertaken to better understand how human activity affects the lake.
The submersibles will operate in three main areas:
- Vidy, near Lausanne, a heavily-populated area where the impact of micro-pollutants can be studied
- mid-lake directly offshore from Lausanne, going as deep as 309 metres, a depth at which little is known about the lake
- Villeneuve, where glacial deposits and sediment have created 30-metre high canyons in the lake: a spectacular, unstable part of the lake that begs exploration.
Lake Geneva, looking from Saint Prex to Lausanne: windy on the surface and largely unknown at its depths (click on image to view larger)
International scientists will have access to the submersibles for research purposes, thanks to support from Ferring Pharmaceuticals in Saint Prex, canton Vaud, the Russian Federation’s Honorary Consulate in Lausanne and the EPFL. Ferring is financing most of the project.
“One-and-a-half million people live near Lake Geneva. Fifty percent of this population gets its daily drinking water from the lake. Yet there is still much to learn about the complex workings of this heavily human-impacted ecosystem,” the EPFL notes in its press release.
“The researchers will gain easy access to the deepest parts of the lake, at depths of over 300 meters, where they will be able to study how pollutants accumulate, and even perform field experiments. The lake consists of layers of water that are permeable to differing degrees. By using the submersibles to carry out a detailed study of the boundaries between these layers, the researchers will be able to better understand how the water circulates. Over time, these models will be of the utmost importance for measuring the local and overall impact of human activity on Lake Geneva.”
The 15 teams include scientists from several institutions: the EPFL, the Universities of Geneva, Neuchatel, Haute-Savoie and Newcastle, Eawag (the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and
Technology), Inra (the National Agronomic Research Institute) in Toulouse, the CNRS (French National Centre for Research), the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
Anatoly Sagalevitch, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the expedition leader for many missions on board the Mir submersibles, notably in the Arctic and Lake Baikal, will join the project for the summer of 2011, with his team.
The 18.6 tons deep-diving vehicles are 7.8 metres long and 3.6m wide. They can reach depths of over 6,000 metres and move at a speed of 9 kph horizontally, 40 kph vertically.
Inside looking out could be the contact lens of the past (photo, wikipedia)
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Glaucoma and diabetes patients may soon find they are wearing contact lenses to monitor their health, with a Swiss company leading the way. New Scientist promises that we are about to see contact lenses whose purpose is not to help us look outward, but to aid doctors who want to better see what’s happening inside our bodies.
Glaucoma patients are first in line, already benefitting from a product that Swiss startup Sensimed, a 2003 spinoff from EPFL in Lausanne, commercialized in October 2010. It is, according to New Scientist, the world’s first smart contact lens that transmit information wirelessly: “Highly sensitive platinum strain gauges embedded in Sensimed’s Triggerfish lens record changes in the curvature of the cornea, which correspond directly to the pressure inside the eye,” and this information is transmitted to a recording device worn by the person.
Glaucoma can cause vision loss through damage to the optic nerve, often through too much pressure in the eye.
Sensimed’s technology, or similar smart contact lens technology, could be used to monitor a number of diseases. Researchers in the US, at Washington State University in Seattle are developping a solar-powered lens that can monitor glucose levels in diabetes patients.
Major building projects: cutting-edge neuroprostheses centre gets new home
Proposed EPFL hall, architect Perrault
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - EPFL, one of Switzerland’s two federal polytechnic institutes, is embarking on a new construction programme that will bring some of its older buildings into line with the new Rolex Learning Center.
The rationale behind the building work, which goes well beyond renovations, is to regroup part of the central services of the school and to create a number of new laboratories for engineering students.
“The work is a follow-up—to a certain extent—to the building of the Rolex Learning Center, since the content of the central library has been moved to EPFL’s flagship building, freeing up significant space,” the school notes in a press release.
“The Center for Neuroprosthetics, which was started at the end of 2008, and is supported by several foundations will thus benefit from a dedicated and perfectly equipped location.”
The Bertarelli family and Borel family (Defitech) foundations are major donors.
Architect Dominique Perrault, who is French, will work with the Swiss Karl Steiner company, which was awarded the general contractor work. Perrault is currently redesigning the Locarno rail station in canton Ticino.
Exterior view, Perrault's hall at EPFL
He is known for his architectural work on the French National Library (the François Mitterand site) in Paris in, 1995, the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg, the Ewha Women’s University in Seoul, South Korea and the Fukoku Tower in Osaka, Japan.
“The winning project convinced us because it establishes a strong link between the older buildings on the campus and the new constructions on the south side of the campus”, says Francis-Luc Perret, EPFL vice-president who is responsible for real estate and who was president of the jury.
An MoS2 (molybdenite) crystal
(correction 31 January) Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – EPFL researchers in Lausanne have shown that a material now used in lubricants could herald a long-awaited leap forward in the electronics industry, allowing smaller and more energy-efficient electronic chips: a material with “distinct advantages over traditional silicon or graphene”.
EPFL says molybdenite, also known as MoS2, could replace these two materials. It is the key to major energy savings, they note. If the electronics industry begins to move away from silicon the implications could be far-reaching.
China is a major supplier of silicon and fears that it might limit exports have become a hot international business and political topic.
Molybdenite on the other hand is “abundant in nature, is often used as an element in steel alloys or as an additive in lubricants”, say the researchers.
Transistor with MoS2
Molybdenite is widely used, but until now it has not been extensively studied for use in electronics.
“It’s a two-dimensional material, very thin and easy to use in nanotechnology. It has real potential in the fabrication of very small transistors, light-emitting diodes (Leds) and solar cells,” says EPFL professor Andras Kis, whose Lanes colleagues M Radisavljevic, A Radenovic and M Brivio worked on the study with him.
Their findings are published 30 January by EPFL’s Lanes (Laboratory of Nanoscale Electronics and Structures) team, in Nature Nanotechnology.
Kis compares its advantages with silicon, currently the primary component used in electronic and computer chips, and graphene, discovered in 2004 by two physicists at the University of Manchester, André Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, who were awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics.
The mix in Swiss forests will likely look different thanks to climate extremes
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Mathematicians at EPFL, the Lausanne-based Polytechnic Institute, are giving forest guardians a helping hand in better understanding what is happening to the tree population.
Half of the Scots pines in the Viège/Visp forest in canton Valais, for example, have died in the past 20 years, and mathematical models have made it clear that the culprit is not so much higher temperatures, as climate extremes. “It’s now acknowledged that it’s extreme climate situations that actually modify vegetation,” EPFL notes in a press release.
The university’s chair of statistics at EPFL, Jacques Ferrez, who is also with the Swiss Federal Research Institute, will soon publish a study of 14 forests, with 10 years of data.
“During the last 10 years, thermometers have been placed simultaneously in the forest and on the outside. We select the extreme daily temperatures, and among this data we only track unusual events.,” explains Ferrez. “You could say that we go by the maximums of maximums and the minimums of minimums.”
Swiss can say bye-bye Scots pines, hello palm trees
EPFL’s new media centre has exclusive research, educational use rights to make digital record of musical treasure
Ray Parker Jr.'s smooth vocals - Photo ©Montreux Jazz Festival
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Ten thousand recording tapes will now become the Montreux Jazz Festival (MJF) library, “the largest testimony of live music recorded at the same place (more than 4,000 bands played in Montreux), both in audio and video, for the past 40 years resulting in 10,000 recording tapes,” EPFL and the Montreux festival enthused when the project was announced in 2008, as part of the 40th anniversary celebrations of the MJF.
The global economic crisis hit soon after.
It has taken two years to find the funds, one person close to the project told GenevaLunch, but it has a home as of December 2010, at the MetaMedia centre for new media announced 9 December at EPFL.
The importance of the project has repercussions for the entire music world: back in 2008 the joint announcement by the Lausanne polytechnic university and the festival noted that “Despite the use of the best state of the art technologies at the time of each recording, there is urgency for their safeguard.” The physical deterioration and technological obsolescence of the audio-visual media, says EPFL today, “of which there are no backup copies—has prompted the Montreux Jazz Festival to find a solution to manage these media in the long term.” Great 20th century recordings of music by the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Phil Collins and David Bowie risked being lost.
Audemars Piguet, the Swiss watchmaking company, Montreux Sounds (owned by MJF founder Claude Nobs), Kudelski in Lausanne and EPFL have joined forces to make the digital record of 5,000 hours of music, representing some 4,000 artists. The group calls the collection of music “a unique treasure and without a doubt one of the greatest musical documents of the past 40 years”.
Government education subsidies keep fees low, even for foreign students
Parked and working hard at the Rolex Learning Center, EPFL in Lausanne
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – One-fifth of Swiss university students are foreign, with the figure climbing for graduate students, yet university fees remain low in Switzerland thanks to government subsidies. Parents pay about half of their adult children’s university costs. New federal statistics published Tuesday 23 November show that only 10 percent of the cost of attending graduate school is financed by scholarships or student loans.
The figures are part of a European-wide survey, Eurostudent, to be published in coming days, according to Bern. Thirty countries participated in the study.
Living at home saves students’ one-third of costs
Three-quarters of Swiss graduate school students work, and their families finance at least 50 percent of their costs.
The bulk of working students are employed during the school year as well as during school holidays.
Students at the HES, or specialized schools, are most often employed in a field linked to their studies.
Graduate students spend on average an additional CHF1,870 a month if they are paying rent away from their parents’ home, or CHF1,210 if they are living at home. Swiss graduate school tuition fees range from CHF1,000-8,000 a year, with foreign students often but not always paying the higher fees.
EPFL’s Aebischer: we need more foreign students
EPFL: Rolex Learning Center has cubicle's for teamwork
The relatively low fees, compared to those in the UK and US, for example, are due largely to government subsidies, but there is little outcry over subsidizing international students. A recent change in the law now gives international students six months to find a job before their permits run out at the end of their studies. Some students, notably engineers, are in short supply and companies who hire them are anxious to see schools like EPFL, the Lausanne polytechnic, turn out more of them.
“There’s a real penurie,” says Denis Piaget, chief executive officer of Etel, a company in Motier, canton Neuchatel. It is the world’s leading supplier of direct drive and motion systems, whose high-tech industry clients include makers of semi-conductors, and it has long worked closely with EPFL. “Our products are unique, so we’re constantly innovating, and our clients have to be companies that are able and ready to invest in that. It’s tough to find really well qualified engineers who can work at this level, so strong academic centres are crucial for us.”
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Rolex’s new awards programme for entrepreneurs, the Young Laureates, pulled in some 600 people for the 11 November ceremony, where five people between 18 and 30 won recognition and prizes of $50,000 each for their projects.
The awards went to: Jacob Colker from the United States, Reese Fernandez from the Philippines, Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu from Nigeria, Piyush Tewari from India and Bruktawit Tigabu from Ethiopia. Their projects range from transforming volunteering for the 21st century to enabling impoverished women to create eco-ethical fashion goods, from developing interactive radio in order to promote sustainable farming, to training volunteers to provide rapid care to road accident victims and developing TV programmes to improve children’s health.
Bruktawit Tigabu’s video on her winning project: TV and children’s health
Mathematical invention part of the future shrinking of our electronic devices
EPFL infograph, Pascal Coderey, 2010
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – EPFL is boasting its 1,000th invention 3 November, with the official arrival of Kandou, a new system based on mathematics whose daunting task is to try to reduce the world’s computer electricity consumption, currently 150 billion kWh per year, which translates into a monthly bill of several billion dollars. The university is boldly predicting that Kandou “could equip most of our electronic systems within a few years.”
Kandou is the 1,000th invention to arrive in the university’s Service of Industrial Relations. It was invented by Harm Cronie and Amin Shokrollahi of the EPFL algorithm laboratory and in a nutshell “enables processors to communicate more rapidly—while using less energy—with their peripherals”: memory, printers, monitors, an EPFL press release notes. The system has already sparked strong interest from large companies in the computer field, it adds.
Most electronic appliances today use ultra-rapid processors that communicate with other processors or other peripherals by using electronic buses, a kind of information highways.
Left to right: William Chin, new EPFL/Harvard programme chair, Didier Burkhalter, Harvard, Ernesto Bertarelli, Bertarelli Foundation, Patrick Aebischer, EPFL
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The EPFL in Lausanne has been building a strong research base in bioengineering, including work in neuroengineering, but a grant announced Friday 29 October by the Bertarelli Foundation moves it a firm step closer to being a major international research centre in the area of engineered solutions to help people with neurological impairments.
The field covers a range of healthcare problems for people who have had neurological damage, from birth or from strokes, degenerative diseases and accidents.
The $9 million grant from the Bertarelli Foundation for a joint programme with Harvard in the US brings the two universities together to take neuroprosthetic devices developped at the EPFL to the testing stage at Harvard.
The Bertarelli Foundation in 2009 had already provided some of the initial funding to establish the EPFL’s Neuprosthetics Center, a joint project between the School of Life Sciences and the School of Engineering, where it is housed.
José del R Millán of the centre describes neuroprosthetics as “a rapidly growing discipline that brings together neuroscience and biomedical engineering and seeks to interface the neural system directly to prostheses”.
The centre works with university hospitals in Geneva and Lausanne and with biomedical companies in the Lake Geneva region, but a logical extension of its creation last year is a partnerships to coordinate development work with clinical trials.
There was no cocaine in this import
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) -Magnetic Resonance Symmetry (MRS), the technique behind MRI scans done in hospitals could well be adopted by customs officials, if Swiss researchers in Lausanne and Geneva have their way. MRS has been shown by the group to be useful for scanning large cargoes and spotting cocaine that is being smuggled in wine bottles without having to open or disturb the cargo container.
A man in the UK reportedly died in 2009 as a result of unwittingly consuming cocaine-laced wine, but customs officials have a tough job spotting such bottles, or have had until now. They must carry out drug-panel tests on open bottles, but “first, contaminated cargo can be overlooked, since it is not possible to check a large number of samples,” writes Giulio Gambarota of EPFL in the Wiley Online Library.
“Second, cargo with expensive wine cannot be systematically sampled at a reasonable cost. Thus, a ‘non-invasive’ approach is of interest, as it would allow for an increase in sampling rate, without alterations to the cargo itself.”
The research work showed that “dissolved cocaine can be detected in intact wine bottles, on a standard clinical MR scanner” in about a minute, making it the option of choice, writes the lead author.
Daniel Borel at the groundbreaking of the Innovation Center at EPFL; it was inaugurated in September 2010, 15 months later (photo 2009, EPFL / Herzog)
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The close relationship looks set to continue between EPFL, the Swiss federal polytechnic institute in Lausanne, and Daniel Borel, a graduate of the school and founder of Logitech. Borel Thursday 30 September helped inaugurate a new Innovation Center on the EPFL campus.
The company he founded, Logitech, is the first firm to take up space in the school’s new five-building centre.
Borel is best known as the man behind the computer mouse. Logitech’s early success was mainly due to the invention of the mouse, which came out of research performed by Jean-Daniel Nicoud, a professor at EPFL. Nicoud developed the first prototype, equipped with a ball and sensors, in the 1970s and Logitech created a production model for Hewlett-Packard in the 1980s.
(videos) Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A robotic wheelchair that combines brain-machine interface with help from computerized cameras, and a tiny laser beamer that can be incorporated into mobile phones, MP3 players and portable computers are two of the latest results of research at EPFL that have the hi-tech world talking.
EPFL is probably best known locally for its academic programmes, as one of two federal polytechnic institutes in Switzerland. The university is an active part of the Lake Geneva region entrepreneurial scene, however, with several successful spinoffs and numerous joint ventures where a significant part of the research is carried out at EPFL.
Wheelchair takes brain-machine interface a step further
EPFL’s neuroprosthetic centre laboratory headed by José de R Millán has developed a robotic wheelchair that uses a system called “shared control” to help severely paralyzed people use brain-machine interface to move their wheelchair, avoiding objects. The prototype is still rudimentary and has not been tested with paralyzed people, the laboratory cautions, but it could eventually significantly improve the life of wheelchair-bound people who have extensive paralysis.
Brain-machine interface is already being used in medicine: computers, prosthetics and other devices, work with technologies that capture signals from the nerves, muscles and the brain. The EPFL robotic wheelchair uses electroencephalography, or EEG to help the patient maneuver his or her wheelchair through thoughts.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Jean-Christophe Leroux, an expert in galenic (natural rather than chemical) studies, was given the CHF100,000 Debiopharm Life Sciences Award at EPFL in Lausanne Tuesday 7 September. Leroux and his team at EPH in Zurich, the other Swiss federal polytechnic university EPFL, are noted for their innovative research on polymer chemistry, nanotechnology and pharmaceutical sciences to yield novel drug therapies, according to Debiopharm, a Swiss-based pharmaceutical company. The award was given as part of an EPFL School of Life Sciences Symposium entitled “Engineering Life”.
Services to expand, open to community
Artist's rendering of new CSS sports and health performance centre in Lausanne
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The CSS (Centre sport et santé), a sports performance centre shared by EPFL and the University of Lausanne, will have a new home in 2012. Lausanne architects Krüger and Kazan have been given the mandate to build the CHF11 million new centre, an extension to the existing Omnisport building, with construction to begin in January 2011.
The project is supported financially by cantonal bank BCV, Vaud’s cantonal sports fund and the Chuv university hospitals.
The new centre will have as its primary focus students at the two universities, but it will be open to the larger community, to others who are interested in measured sports performance at all levels including individuals.
Travel bargains, solar panels, antimatter detectors, flying boats and an all-new old solar system!
Hydroptere.ch unveiled near Lausanne: prototype for world's fastest sailboat (photo ©2010 Gilles Martin-Raget)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Lake Geneva region has been showing its mettle in science and high tech areas this week. The world’s fastest sailboat project unveiled its new prototype, an entrepreneur has won a major award for his travel bargain’s online database, the region’s largest solar panels park has begun soaking up the sun and an unusual new solar system has been found by a team led by Geneva scientists. And Cern packed off a hulking antimatter detector to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it will join the final shuttle in the US space programme.
World’s fastest sailboat, Hydroptere, unveils new prototype, soon sailing on Lake Geneva
Alain Thebault, Hydroptere founder, pilot (photo ©2010 Gilles Martin-Raget)
Hydroptere.ch was unveiled 23 August in Ecublens. The sailboat is a water-borne lab that will soon be put into Lake Geneva. It is a prototype for Hydroptère maxi “whose purpose is to beat the most famous oceanic records and to follow Jules Verne’s vision: Flying around the planet”, says Alain Thébault, founder and project pilot. The project is working closely with EPFL, the polytechnic institute in Lausanne.
Hydroptère made sailing milestones in 2009 when the 60-foot trimaran became the fastest sailing craft in the world, beating two absolute sailing speed records: 51.36 knots (95 km/h) over 500 metres and 50.17 knots (93 km/h) over one nautical mile.
Thébault told a press conference early in the week that “The objective of this hybrid sailing boat is versatility. Sailing nearly as fast as Archimedean traditional boats and achieving higher speeds in flight. First on Lake Geneva, then in the Mediterranean and abroad, l’Hydroptère.ch should give answers to precise questions related to flight dynamics and she will be an ambassador of the cross-frontier collaboration.”
Unusual new solar system found sparks “a new era in exoplanet research”
The planetary system around the Sun-like star HD 10180 (artist’s impression)
An international research team led by astronomers at the University of Geneva Observatory in Versoix announced Tuesday 24 August they they have uncovered a new solar system with several intriguing features. It has the smallest exoplanet (a planet that orbits a star other than the Earth’s sun) found to date and it has a configuration of planets never seen before, with five Neptune-like planets.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The M1 will close for five weeks, from 12 July to 17 August, for a checkup and repairs, TL, the Lausanne public transport company has confirmed to newspaper 24 Heures. Some 800 metres of rail will be replaced and security rails repaired, with the project covering two summers and costing CHF2.2 million, reports TSR. The M1 system carried 11.2 million passengers in 2009, but its quietest period is in summer, when University of Lausanne and EPFL students use it less. Buses will be used by TL during the time the M1 is closed.
Michael Graetzel, EPFL Laboratory of Photonic and Interfaces
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Michael Graetzel, professor at EPFL, has been awarded the prestigious Millennium Technology Prize, which carries a €800,000 award. His name is carried by the dye-sensitized solar cells that are widely considered to hold enormous promise for the future of solar technology.
EPFL, in announcing the award, explains his work:
Inspired by photosynthesis, this unique form of solar cells has only recently been commercialized. These dye-sensitized solar cells cost less to produce than conventional silica based cells and are also more versatile, making them one of the most promising technologies in the field of renewable energy. Michaël Graetzel has also worked on improving next-generation li-on batteries by making them safer and more efficient and solar energy storage using hydrogen extraction—unlocking a potent carbon-free energy source that could one day replace petrol.
The Millennium Technology Prize, created in 2004, is given by the Technology Academy Finland, a partnership of the Finnish government and industry. It is given for innovative applied science that contributes directly to the well-being of all.
Video on his work from swissinfo
Crowds for EPFL open house, Geneva wines Open Day and CGN party to celebrate steamboat’s 100 years
Hands-on science lessons during EPFL open house in Lausanne
Update 18:20 Geneva / Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The first weekend after the two long spring holiday weekends are always filled with events in the Lake Geneva region, and 2010 was no exception. The crowds turned out again for the Geneva wines Open Day Saturday 29 May, with English-speakers taking part (Ed. note: the Tribune de Geneve carries an article about the number of expats present and interviews one who after eight years in the city speaks two words of French, which has prompted negative comments).
It is hard to calculate how many people turned out, says Denis Beausoleil, director of the Geneva cantonal wine office, but clearly it was in the thousands, and this year the weather was perfect, not too warm, and the small amount of overcrowding and drunkeness that marred a couple previous Open Days seems to have disappeared. “It was a day that reflected the vintage, the excellent 2009 wine!” says Beausoleil. The 2009 harvest is generally reckoned to be one of the best in years, and the Open Day provided consumers a chance to sample the goods.
This is the first year wine producers have tried a system where visitors pay CHF5 for their glass, but they can keep the same glass for the day. The feedback from wineries is that the system worked well.
EPFL packs in visitors
La Suisse, queen of the Belle Epoque fleet on Lake Geneva, celebrates her 100th birthday in style
Two out of the ordinary events took place that also attracted crowds. EPFL, the polytechnic institute near Lausanne, held its first open house in seven years to give the public an opportunity to visit its new Rolex Learning Center, but also to see firsthand the multitude of physical changes taking place on the campus, and to explore its growing number of programmes. The university estimates that some 25,000 people visited during the two days, Saturday and Sunday. Sixteen centres, with 1,200 staff and student volunteers explained some of EPFL’s strong points, such as its nanotechnology work, the Blue Brain project, work on robots and architecture. The open house brought to an end a week-long official inauguration for the Rolex Learning Center.
Nearby, in Lausanne, La Suisse, a beautiful old steamboat and one of the gems of the CGN Belle Epoque fleet that is the world’s largest, celebrated her 100th birthday Sunday, after a colourful Saturday in Geneva and an evening cruise up to the other end of the lake. Hundreds took advantage of the celebrations for short tours on the boat, which was dressed up in the outfit it wore its first day out in 1910: flags from all the cantons and 30 masts.
La Suisse will operate on the upper end of the lake from 13 June to 12 September, stopping at: Lausanne, Pully, Lutry, Cully, Rivaz, Vevey, Clarens, Montreux, Chillon, Villeneuve, Le Bouveret and St Gingolph.
The AISTS is housed on the EPFL campus in Lausanne
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Lausanne’s role as the world’s sports management capital is about to be strengthened by a new programme that will kick off in 2011: an executive MBA in sports management and technology for established sports industry professionals. The course is offered by the AISTS, the International Academy of Sports Science and Technology, which was set up in 2000 and which in 10 years has become a top education and research centre in sports.
The AISTS already has a master’s programme in sports administration and technology for people starting out in sports management and it has for some time offered continuing education seminars.
Open enrollment programme also open to managers not on the MBA course
The school will also offer an open enrollment executive programme, starting in January 2011, available to people in the new MBA programme as well as to anyone who participates in individual programmes for continuing education purposes. Two-, four- and five-day course offerings cover the following: finance and accounting; supply-chain and management; decision support systems; project management; sports business management and strategy I and II; leadership and human dynamics; inside the Olympic Capital; sports innovation and technology; management of law in sport organizations; the sociology of sport; information, communications, technology; health and sport; sports marketing sponsorship, and communications I and II, anti-doping and genetics, women’s sport management and leadership, and a sport event lifecycle diploma that coves several topics.
The cost will be CHF3,500 to 6,000 for individual courses. Participants who complete more than two courses will receive a certificate in sports administration and technology. People who complete more than six will receive a diploma in sport administration and technology. The executive MBA, diplomas and certificates are signed by the AISTS, the EPFL and additional AISTS founding academic institutions.
The AISTS, an unusual joint creation by top universities, government, sports groups
The AISTS’s credibility comes in part from its unusual background. It was created as a cooperative effort among the top universities in the Lake Geneva region, government and sports bodies: the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the University of Geneva, the University of Lausanne, the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration (IDHEAP), IMD Business School, the City of Lausanne, and Canton of Vaud.
It’s located on the campus of EPFL in Lausanne and offers a multidisciplinary approach that incorporates management, economics, technology, medicine, biology, law, logistics, sociology, sustainability and ethics into the study of sport.
How the MBA will work
MBA candidates will complete 60 ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) credits comprised of in-class lectures and workshops, plus a personal project/thesis over a period of two to three years. Some classes and courses will be held during the week, while others will be on evenings and weekends to accommodate work schedules.
Details for the MBA programme:
- the executive MBA will begin in 2011
- the application deadline is October 31, 2010 with the first course commencing in February 2011
- total cost of the 2011 MBA is CHF 31,000. Additional costs associated with transportation to lectures and any necessary accommodation are the responsibility of the participant
- further information regarding application requirements will be available this summer at www.aists.org.
For more information: contact AISTS at info@aists.org or by phone +41 21 693 8593.
Michael Graetzel, EPFL Laboratory of Photonic and Interfaces
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Michael Graetzel, head of the photonics and interfaces laboratory at EPFL in Lausanne, is one of three finalists vying for the Millennium Technology Prize, worth €800,000. The prize has been offered every two years since 2004 by the Technology Institute of Finland, for “for a technological innovation that significantly improves the quality of human life, today and in the future.” It is the world’s largest award for technological innovation.
The prize committee describes Graetzel’s qualifications for the award:
Solar impulse lifts off the ground for its first flight in Payerne, Switzerland 7 April 2010
Update 13:05 Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The weather was beautiful, the mood upbeat – and the plane flew, just as everyone was hoping it would. Solar Impulse, the first plane designed to fly night and day without fossil fuels, slowly climbed 1,200 metres into the air Wednesday 7 April at 10:27 and flew for the next 87 minutes before pilot Markus Scherdel landed it again in Payerne.
Solar Impulse, maiden flight 7 April 2010 in Payerne, Switzerland
“This first flight was for me a very intense moment!” Scherdel told the crowd that had gathered, as he got down from the aircraft.
GenevaLunch photo album of the Rolex Learning Center 52 images by Mr Kio and Peter Brodbeck (best viewed as a stream)
Rolex Learning Center reflects shift to group and project learning, digital sources
EPFL (photo ©2010 Mr Kio)
Update 30 March 21:45 Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The bad old days of sitting in fusty dark and silent libraries pouring over books are definitely a thing of the past at EPFL‘s new Rolex Learning Center (RLC). The building itself is airy and light, with a multitude of open spaces where students gather in small groups or stretch out on bright beanbag chairs.
The architects of this extraordinary building were named the winners of the annual, highly coveted international architectural Pritzker Prize Monday 29 March for the body of their work. Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, partners in the Japanese architecture firm Sanaa, created the space for the RLC in response to changes that have come from students themselves, says the university.
EPFL (photo ©2010 Mr Kio)
EPFL (photo ©2010 Mr Kio)
“Our students are using our libraries more and more frequently, but less for the purpose of borrowing books and more to work, either individually or in groups,” the RLC blog before the library opened in February. “The Bologna reform and a general trend in education towards learning through projects and group work are having an impact on students today. They are looking for a mix: a place where they can either sit for several hours and work or where they can find information on paper and electronically, and where they can choose to work in silence or interact with their fellow students.”
Inside EPFL's Rolex Learning Center (photo©2010 Peter Brodbeck)
Architects Sejima and Nishizawa (photo 2010, Sanaa)
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The architects who designed the Rolex Learning Center at EPFL in Lausanne will be awarded the Pritzker Prize, widely considered the top prize in architecture, in May at Ellis Island in New York.
The news was announced Monday 29 March by the Hyatt Foundation in Los Angeles, California. The two will be awarded $100,000 in prize money.
Last year’s winner was Peter Zumthor of Switzerland.
Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, partners in the architectural firm, Sanaa, were named by the jury “For architecture that is simultaneously delicate and powerful, precise and fluid, ingenious but not overly or overtly clever; for the creation of buildings that successfully interact with their contexts and the activities they contain, creating a sense of fullness and experiential richness; for a singular architectural language that springs from a collaborative process that is both unique and inspirational; for their notable completed buildings and the promise of new projects together.”
EPFL joins the fight against tuberculosis
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Testing new therapies in the fight to eradicate tuberculosis is high on the list of work that will be done at a new laboratory in Lausanne that specializes in air-borne pathogens. EPFL, the Swiss federal polytechnic institute in Lausanne, inaugurated the laboratory Wednesday 17 March. It is financed by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and the Swiss government and is open to researchers from EPFL and nearby universities.
The laboratory will study in vivo strains of Bacillus anthracis, the air-borne pathogen that causes tuberculosis, a disease that has thousands of new victims a year, including 500 new cases annually in Switzerland alone. The teams will be led by EPFL professors Stewart Cole, who is head of the EPFL Global Health Institute, and John McKinney.
Cole points out that the problem is not, as people often believe, limited to developing countries. “In Département 93 in France and in certain neighbourhoods in London the rate of tuberculosis disease is as high as in sub-Saharan Africa.And it is in Eastern Europe where the most virulent and antibiotic-resistant strains are found. Seventy percent of the patients do not survive if they don’t receive effective treatment, he says.
The researchers will work on strains used around the world, which are less aggressive than those found in nature, or even in hospitals, according to Cole.
The Life Sciences building at EPFL in Lausanne
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A team of researchers at the Brain Mind Institute at the EPFL in Lausanne has unraveled one of the mysteries that is part of the larger question of how Alzheimers works. In an article that appears Wednesday 3 March in The Journal of Neuroscience, the group of laboratories working with the Institute’s director, Pierre Magistretti, has studied studied how the functions of cells called astrocytes are impaired when “possessed” by aggregated, or built up, Amyloid-Beta.
Amyloid-Beta protein, found in cerebral plaques, is typically present in the brain of Alzheimer’s patients.
Rolex Learning Center / EPFL by Sanaa ©2010 Hisao Suzuki
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The CHF110 million Rolex Learning Center at EPFL in Lausanne opens officially Monday 22 February. The 21st century education center is notable for its waves of floors without stairs and ceilings seemingly without support columns. It has Swiss cheese-like holes in the roof for light and aeration. The building is quite simply extraordinary to behold, and time will tell if its innovative design is as functionally pleasing as architects of the Japanese firm Sanaa promise.
The center is more than just an unusual building visually and functionally: in keeping with the work of EPFL into materials and processes research, the Rolex Learning Center has been built using several new construction methods.
Students, faculty and visitors who enter the building Monday will find a center which acknowledges that traditional learning methods and materials have been replaced by group work, using interactive and digital tools.
