News

We present a fully-integrated breath analyzer for fat metabolism monitoring in clinical and home settings. The device was successfully validate on volunteers during exercising and different diets. Great collaboration between Simone Hersberger, Jan van den Broek, Lara Schmid, Fabienne Kappeler, and Philipp A. Gerber from our spin-off Alivion AG and University Hospital Zürich.

Simulations conducted by researchers at ETH Zurich suggest a strong likelihood that Venus’s rift valleys are still geologically active rather than being mere relics of a bygone era, as had been previously believed. This finding reshapes our understanding of Earth’s sister planet and will influence future missions to Venus. 

Markus has been appointed to the ETH Research Commission as one of two new members. The four year term will run from 1 September 2026 until 31 August 2030.
Each year, the Research commission reviews more than 400 applications submitted to various funding schemes, including ETH Grants, ETH Fellows, and the Scientific Equipment Programme.
Congratulations Markus on this important appointment!

In his talk last week, Dr. Michael Kappl from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research presented test results for new fluorine-free silicone nanofilament-coated membranes. The membranes outperform conventional fluorinated membranes in several aspects.

Researchers from ETH Zurich have developed a portable measuring device that detects the metabolic marker acetone in breath almost as accurately as a mass spectrometer. It can be used by laypeople and detects when the body starts burning fat when dieting or during exercise.  

ETH students and recent graduates with a promising business idea and a functional prototype can now access dedicated support. The new UPortunity program helps them to launch their start-up and bring their innovations to market quickly.

The Chair of Structural Mechanics and Monitoring at ETH Zürich is pleased to participate in the 9th World Conference on Structural Control and Monitoring (9WCSCM), which opened today at the historic Sheffield City Hall. The conference brings together the international structural engineering community to discuss the latest advances in structural control, structural health monitoring, digital twins, and intelligent infrastructure.

The Chair of Structural Mechanics and Monitoring is participating in WCCM–ECCOMAS 2026, taking place in Munich from 20 to 24 July 2026. Through a series of presentations, a jointly organised minisymposium and a plenary lecture, members of the Chair and their collaborators will contribute to discussions spanning computational mechanics, scientific machine learning, model calibration, reduced-order modelling and engineering decision support.

AI models are playing an increasingly important role in weather forecasting and the early detection of natural hazards. Training these models requires vast amounts of climate and Earth observation data. Over the past few months, ETH Zurich has therefore copied openly available datasets from NASA to the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) in Lugano.