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174 Current news from Switzerland

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How micro- and nanoplastics are infiltrating the Arctic ice

Environmental scientist Alice Pradel cultivates ice cores in the lab to investigate the transport and accumulation of micro-​ and nanoplastics

26-Mar-2024 - “Beat the Microbead” is the name of a campaign launched in 2012 with the aim of reducing the use of microplastics in cosmetic products in order to minimise negative effects on the environment and people. For Alice Pradel, the campaign was a wake-​up call. “As a young environmental scientist, I ...

environmental analytics environmental science microplastics +1
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Spiky insight: How red blood cells deform

Holotomographic microscopy

07-Feb-2024 - Empa researchers have observed living red blood cells transforming into spiky "echinocytes" in real time when treated with high concentrations of ibuprofen using holotomographic microscopy and displayed them in 3D renderings. Blood is indeed "a juice of rarest quality." What the poet and natural ...

blood erythrocytes ibuprofen +3
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ABB Robotics and Mettler-Toledo join forces to accelerate global adoption of flexible lab automation

Companies will redefining the limits of robotics in laboratories to accelerate innovation and address labor shortages

02-Feb-2024 - ABB Robotics and METTLER TOLEDO have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to offer an innovative solution that seamlessly integrates ABB’s robots with LabX™, METTLER TOLEDO’s laboratory instrument management software. The combined solution will enable greater levels of efficient and ...

Lab Automation Laboratory automation laboratory equipment +4
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Bruker Announces Agreement to Acquire Chemspeed

Chemspeed Accelerates Bruker’s Laboratory Automation and Digitalization Drive

29-Jan-2024 - Bruker Corporation announced a definitive agreement for the acquisition of Chemspeed Technologies AG, a Swiss provider of vendor-agnostic automated laboratory R&D and QC workflow solutions. Chemspeed is focused on modular automation and robotics solutions for chemical research, pharma drug ...

acquisitions Lab Automation Laboratory automation +2
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Enabling early detection of cancer: AI helps

Blood cells reveal tumours in the body: Researchers achieve an advance with the development of a test for early diagnosis of cancer

18-Dec-2023 - The ability to detect a developing tumour at a very early stage and to closely monitor the success or failure of cancer therapy is crucial for a patient’s survival. A breakthrough on both counts has now been achieved by researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI. Researchers led by G.V. ...

artificial intelligence biomarker blood cells +11
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Fishing for DNA to measure biodiversity

Identifying the fish species present in a river based on traces of their DNA: this method has been successfully tested at about 90 sites in Switzerland

07-Dec-2023 - As they swim around, fish leave DNA fragments behind them, e.g. via their skin or their excrements. Once collected and analysed, these indicators allow scientists to determine all the species present in the environment. What's more, the method is precise, simpler and less harmful to the fish than ...

DNA DNA analytics DNA fragment analysis +2
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Watching electrons at work

Looking inside nanocrystals

06-Dec-2023 - Researchers from ETH Zurich, Empa - Swiss Federal Laboratory for Materials Science and Technology, and Stanford have taken snapshots of the crystal structure of perovskite nanocrystals as it was deformed by excited electrons. To their surprise, the deformation straightened out the skewed crystal ...

crystal lattices crystal structures electrons +2
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Spacetek Technology announces the successful closing of its Seed Financing Round

Time-of-flight mass spectrometers (TOF-MS) inspired by space technology

22-Nov-2023 - Spacetek Technology AG has successfully completed its seed financing round in October 2023. Led by Swisscom Ventures, 5.8 million CHF in funding has been secured from a group of financial investors. The Spectrum Moonshot Fund also joined as a co-investor along with the existing ...

mass spectrometers process analysis seed financing +2
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Hazardous ingredients in batteries

Trust, but verify! A long and winding road to an innovative method

29-Sep-2023 - Although strict limits exist, old types of batteries can still contain too many hazardous ingredients such as mercury, cadmium and lead. The Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) has therefore launched a control campaign. Empa has laid the foundations for this with a novel tailor-made method ...

batteries cadmium energy storage +4
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Building muscle in the lab

This provides a potential for treating patients with muscle diseases – and for those who would like to eat meat, but don’t want to kill animals.

18-Aug-2023 - ETH Zurich Professor Ori Bar-​Nur and his team grow muscle cells in the laboratory. In this case, they are mouse cells, but the researchers are also interested in human and cow cells. Promising applications resonate with both: human muscle tissue cultured in the lab could be used in surgery, ...

meat alternatives meat production muscle cells +1