Future
Plastic gobblers found in alpine and arctic soils
Research
WSL
Scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL have discovered microbes that degrade plastic at cool temperatures. This opens up new perspectives for recycling certain types of plastic. Most known microbes require at least 30°C for their decomposition work.
Switzerland’s path to the net-zero target
Politics
PSI Empa
Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050: Switzerland can only achieve this ambitious goal if science, business, politics and society all work together. The six institutions of the ETH Domain have pooled their expertise, with PSI as the Leading House, to form the Swiss Centre of Excellence on Net-Zero Emissions (SCENE), in order to support the country’s decarbonisation.
Methane as an energy store
TechTransfer
PSI
One important question regarding the planned transition to supplying energy without greenhouse gas emissions is: how can we store energy for times when wind turbines and photovoltaic systems are not supplying electricity? Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute and the start-up AlphaSYNT offer one possible answer. With a new approach to “power-to-methane” conversion, they are promoting a technology for storing energy in the form of methane gas that is ready for industrial use.
“A development freeze would jeopardise transparency”
Politics
ETH Zurich
In an open letter, tech luminaries from the worlds of science and industry are calling for a freeze on training new AI models that are more powerful than GPT-4. ETH AI experts Andreas Krause and Alexander Ilic from the ETH Zurich AI Center consider this to be difficult to enforce and associated with risks.  
Together towards negative emissions
TechTransfer
Empa
The Association for the Decarbonization of Industry (AfDI) has set itself the goal of developing rapidly implementable and holistic approaches for CO2 reduction in industrial processes. The focus is on industrial high-temperature applications. Ideas of a global approach with overall negative CO2 emissions are also being pursued. Empa researcher Christian Bach represents Empa as a founding member in the association. Together with AfDI project manager Andreas Bittig, he provides insights into the visionary ideas and their practical implementation.
Global challenges: What can plant science do to help?
Research
WSL
Plants transform light into sugar and are thus the foundation of all ecosystems as well as the food supply for humanity. In a global initiative, plant researchers together with representatives from civil society have now compiled the 100 most pressing questions for plant science.
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