News EPFL

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.

MRI helps unravel the mysteries of sleep

Published:22.01.21 — Scientists at EPFL and the Universities of Geneva, Cape Town and Bochum have joined forces to investigate brain activity during sleep with the help of MRI scans. It turns out our brains are much more active than we thought.

New metamaterial offers reprogrammable properties

Published:21.01.21 — EPFL scientists have developed a metamaterial whose mechanical properties can be reprogrammed on demand and whose internal structure can be modified by applying a magnetic field. 

NAD+ can restore age-related muscle deterioration

Published:20.01.21 — Scientists at EPFL have discovered that Alzheimer’s-like protein aggregates underly the muscle deterioration seen in aging. But the aggregates can be reversed by boosting the levels of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), which turns on the defense systems of mitochondria in cells and restores muscle function.

Machine learning helps retrace evolution of classical music

Published:19.01.21 — Researchers in EPFL’s Digital and Cognitive Musicology Lab in the College of Humanities used an unsupervised machine learning model to ‘listen to’ and categorize more than 13,000 pieces of Western classical music, revealing how modes – such as major and minor – have changed throughout history.

Snap-freezing reveals a truer structure of brain connections

Published:18.01.21 — Scientists at EPFL have used a snap-freezing method to reveal the true structure of the connections that join neurons together in the adult brain.

Biomass-driven technology allows for enhanced energy conversion

Published:15.01.21 — Organic waste – whether from households, agriculture or agroforestry – can be used as energy resource, but is often underexploited. A team of EPFL scientists has developed a methodology to better incorporate this resource into existing power grids and gas distribution systems, depending on local availability and demand.