ETH Podcast: Recent Episodes
ETH Zurich
The new podcast from ETH Zurich is here! The topics are as varied as the formats: In exciting background reports and expert talks we want to include everything that is thrilling, controversial, and fun about science and technology.
ETH Zurich – Where the future begins!
Our university for science and technology dates back to the year 1855, when the founders of modern-day Switzerland created it as a centre of innovation and knowledge. At ETH Zurich, students discover an ideal environment for independent thinking, researchers a climate which inspires top performance. Situated in the heart of Europe, yet forging connections all over the world, ETH Zurich is pioneering effective solutions to the global challenges of today and tomorrow. ETH Zurich has an excellent reputation in scientific circles: 21 Nobel laureates have studied, taught or researched here, and ETH regularly ranks as one of the world’s top universities.
Switzerland's former ambassador to the US Martin Dahinden made many exciting encounters during his diplomatic career, and ETH Zurich played a key role throughout.
Horizon Europe is the European Union’s multi-billion-euro research programme. Due to political differences, Switzerland is now largely excluded from this programme.
“If more people knew about engineering, they would find their passion in it, because you can really do a lot… I mean, you can change the world.”
On International Women’s Day, the ETH podcast has a close look at facts and figures regarding gender equality at ETH.
Jennifer’s story is one of coming full circle. Originally from Detroit and having recently moved back, Jennifer explains how her serendipitous path and global living experiences built on each other.
Usually, failure is something shameful, or at least it used to be. Nowadays, people rather talk about how crucial failure is for success.
In this episode of the ETH podcast, we explore the benefits of failing and what makes stories about failure so interesting.
Sascha Stocker, who used to be on the board of the ETH Entrepreneur Club, talks about organising “FuckUp Nights,” and ETH professor Manu Kapur explains how he discovered the power of failure for teaching mathematics.
ETH Zurich was not Jeannine's first choice for a place of study, but she made the switch because she was looking for more opportunities to apply her creative side.
ETH’s Student Project House is a dream come true for young inventors. It's a space where flashes of inspiration can materialise - or not and a place where students can implement their ideas without the pressure of succeeding. The ETH-Podcast talks to the head of the Student Project House, Lucie Rejman, who shows us around and introduces a few tinkerers who use the 3-D printer, laser cutters, as well as people who breed grasshoppers, or young students inventing a straw that should check drinks for drugs.
The ETH is the alma mater of quite a few Nobel Prize Laureates, the most prominent of whom is probably Albert Einstein. He is somewhat of a pop star inside and outside of the scientific community. For the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prize in Physics, ETH spin-off Animatico has created an animated figure called Digital Einstein. In the ETH Podcast, we talk to Patrick Karpiczenko, the author and impersonator of Digital Einstein, along with ETH Physics Professor Marina Krstic Marinkovic about why Albert Einstein is still a role model for young scientists.
Over 60 years ago, a skiing expedition in Soviet Russia started as an adventure and ended in a tragedy. A group of students never returned from a trip to the Ural mountains in the winter of 1959 and were found dead later. This story is known as the Dyatlov Pass Incident. It has inspired many tales about the deaths of the students, including Soviet military experiments, conspiracy theories, killer Yetis, and extraterrestrials. Alexander Puzrin from ETH Zurich and Johan Gaume from EPFL found a plausible explanation for the accident using computer simulation and analytical models. They made headlines around the world with it earlier this year.
SKINTEGRITY.CH is a transdisciplinary consortium for the largest organ of humans, the skin. What began at lunch between the ETH-Professors Sabine Werner and Edoardo Mazza emerged as a nationwide interdisciplinary consortium of scientists from diverse universities and hospitals. The goal of SKINTEGRITY.CH is to understand and treat skin diseases and abnormalities in wound healing.
Martin Ackermann steps down as head of the Swiss National Covid-19 science task force. Tanja Stadler succeeds him in this responsible position.
Didier Queloz is a highly passionate person with a broad sense of humour. Instead of becoming a storyteller, he chose to become an astrophysicist. While working on his PhD., he made a discovery that changed astronomy entirely. Together with his professor Michel Mayor, Didier Queloz received the Physics Nobel Prize for this discovery.
In the ETH podcast, he talks about the quandaries of being a young Nobel Laureate. He also talks about his plans at ETH and tells us what he would ask a Martian if he met one.
While Domenico Giardini, Professor of Seismology and Geodynamics, already has his hands on Mars, Adrian Glauser, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Astronomy, has to be patient. Among many others, Adrian worked on the James-Webb-Telescope that shall finally launch this fall, with a delay of many years. Both researchers talk about their work in the ETH Podcast and contemplate the universe's dimension to time on planet earth.
For Claude Nicollier, the dream of flying to space came true four times. Judit Szulágyi - a professor in computational astrophysics at the ETH- has never left the earth's atmosphere so far. She is applying to become one of the next ESA astronauts. We talk to Claude about what planet earth looks like from space, and we ask Judit about her experiences working at NASA and what she thinks it takes to reach for the stars.
Helga Nowotny is an internationally recognised researcher on Social Studies of Science. She is professor emerita from the ETH and is on many advisory boards. Eric Burns just finished his Ph.D. at ETH and is pursuing a career in Switzerland.
In the last episode of the Uncertainty-Series, we talk to Helga and Eric about why uncertainty in research is imminent but at the same time increases pressure on researchers regarding their position.
An episode of different generations on one subject.
"Uncertainty is something that makes people uncomfortable. At the same time, it is the only chance for learning", Nadine Bienefeld says. She is the Senior Researcher & Lecturer at the Department of Management, Technology, and Economics at the ETH. Nadine works in the team of Professor Gudela Grote, who is particularly interested in unlocking people's potential by increasing Uncertainty. At the same time, she points out: "Uncertainty is hard for people right now. And it is also a question of what resources you have to deal with the uncertainty". In the ETH Podcast, both Scientists tell us about their research and talk about how important it is to speak up in teams in stressful working environments.
ETH senior lecturer Myriam Dunn Cavelty never imagined that cybersecurity would evolve from a niche subject to a big thing. Today, the topic is on everyone’s lips - and it is an important research field at ETH Zurich. Myriam is a highly respected researcher in the area and talks about how cybersecurity and uncertainty come as a pair. In the third episode of the uncertainty series of the ETH podcast, we also meet student Karin Holzhauser. She decided to go back to university after having had a career in the business world and having stayed home with her family for a while. Out of all subjects, she chose Computer Science at ETH Zurich as, after all, she wanted to get involved and shape the future.
The threat of Climate Change is similar to the Corona Pandemic. Covid-19 and Climate evoke Uncertainty on many levels and are both global problems that affect every single one of us. In the second episode of our Uncertainty-Series, we talk to the renowned ETH Professors Reto Knutti and Tony Patt and student and Climate activist Annabelle Ehmann. In this episode of the ETH podcast, everyone reveals how he or she deals with uncertainty in Climate Change.
This past year has been strange and strenuous. Patience and endurance are what all of us need on many levels. The Corona-Virus-Pandemic not only changed the way we interact, work, and study, it also brought out Uncertainty in many aspects.
In the December Episode of the ETH-Podcast, we talk to Tierry Hörmann, the old, and Luca Dahle the new president of VSETH, the umbrella organisation of all students, and how they reach out to fellow students. ETH-Rector Sarah Springman joins the talk and compares this phase with competing in a triathlon without the finishing line in sight. All three guests also talk about the few positive aspects of the crisis.
This year's end episode marks the beginning of a Podcast-series touching on the topic of Uncertainty. In our next episodes, we will talk to scientists and students about Uncertainty regarding the field of Climate as well as Cyber Security.
Sometimes it only takes a few seconds to separate life into a before and an after. Joachim Schoss talks about such a moment when he had a horrible motorcycle accident. He lost his arm and shoulder as well as a part of his leg 18 years ago. Joachim is the president of Myhandycap, a Foundation for people with disabilities and chronic illnesses, and he is also an ambassador of the Cybathlon. ETH-Robotics Professor Robert Riener joins the Cybathlon-Episode of the ETH-Podcast and talks about how he came up with the idea of a competition for people with physical disabilities and how the competition fuels scientific progress.
At the moment, nothing seems to be the way it was. There is a „before" and „during" regarding the pandemic. Many people in the world are impatient while waiting for a COVID-19-vaccine. Why is it taking so long, and because of the pandemic, might it be smart to get a flu shot this fall? In the ETH-Podcast, we talk to two immunologists about these questions: Professor Emma Slack from ETH and Johannes Trück, a pediatrician from Kinderspital Zürich.
Poverty has many faces. The question of affordable nutrition, water, housing, and energy are just some factors poor people face in their everyday life. The initiative ETH for Development (ETH4D) wants to tackle poverty not by “saving” people from a bad situation but by improving certain circumstances, such as access to off-grid electricity. The Executive Director of ETH4D, Adina Rom, and Ph.D. student Churchill Agutu are guests of the ETH-Podcast and talk about how research and practice can make a difference in fighting poverty.
ETH computer scientists Julia Vogt and Fanny Yang work in the field of Machine Learning and Medicine. While Fanny builds models, Julia applies the theories in different projects collaborating with hospitals. In the ETH-Podcast, both researchers talk about what drew them to their field, and why machines will never replace human beings in the medical field.
Climate change hasn’t been hitting the headlines quite as much in recent months – but that’s not because the situation has improved. ETH Zurich researchers Lynn Kaack and David Dao spoke to the ETH Podcast back in March about how we can use AI to help in the fight against climate change.
This episode of the ETH podcast is about Lynn Kaack’s and David Dao’s work on the energy transition and forests, their work with the organisation Climate Change AI, and their take on research, activism and policy.
We pushed back the podcast that had been produced before the lockdown due to our special series on COVID-19 and it has now been supplemented with current statements from the two researchers. Because we wanted to know what had changed for them.
The coronavirus pandemic forced ETH Zurich to suspend almost all its experimental research in mid-March. This was a major challenge, especially for Detlef Günther, ETH’s Vice President for Research. "But now I see a little more light at the end of the tunnel," he says in the podcast. After all, experimental research is now being stepped up again, albeit with restrictions, as the strict rules on physical distancing and hygiene still apply. Full occupancy is therefore not possible in many laboratories. Despite the adverse circumstances, Günther also sees some positive consequences of the pandemic: it has brought together many disciplines that were previously not connected with each other. His hope is "If we preserve just 20 percent of this mentality, we will definitely bring ETH much further forward in solving future challenges".
The podcast episode with Detlef Günther concludes ETH’s ten-part #COVID-19 special series. Of course, the coronavirus will keep the world busy for some time yet and the topic will certainly play a role in upcoming podcast episodes. However, it's also time for the ETH Podcast to find its way back to a normality where different topics have their place and are explored again in more detail.
Various contact-tracing apps are currently being developed worldwide to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Apps are seen as a necessary tool in the battle to contain coronavirus infections, but they also raise many ethical questions – not least of which is how to implement digital contact tracing in accordance with data protection. Effy Vayena, Professor of Bioethics, nevertheless remains optimistic that digital technologies can help reduce the speed at which the virus spreads. "We are currently dealing with a variety of technologies that are able to protect our privacy while still serving their purpose," she says.
Tanja Stadler has been in the Swiss media quite a lot lately. As an Associate Professor in the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, she knows how to interpret data regarding the spread of the virus. On the ETH Podcast she explains how characterising the genomes of virus samples taken from different infected patients gives her insight into how fast the virus spreads. The data she is using comes from many nations around the globe. “It is remarkable how willingly researchers and authorities are sharing their data during this crisis,” she says.
The current situation presents an enormous challenge for economists like Jan-Egbert Sturm. The director of the KOF Swiss Economic Institute and his counterparts around the world are shifting from economic forecasting to scenario planning in a time of unprecedented change. “We are confronted with a situation where we can’t wait for a quarter to end. We have to work with weekly or even daily data,” says Sturm.
Singapore is situated in Southeast Asia and has a strong connection to China. Nevertheless, the coronavirus epidemic in Singapore has been much weaker than in Europe so far. Gerhard Schmitt, Professor of Information Architecture and Director of the Singapore–ETH Centre, tells the ETH Podcast how the strong measures against COVID-19 have changed the city, which usually suffers under self-generated heat. Right now, air and street traffic have almost disappeared: “It’s as if a simulation has become reality.” This situation offers unique opportunities for Schmitt’s research.
For most people, staying at home right now means a lot of sitting and staring at screens. Katrien de Bock, Professor of Exercise and Health, tries to stay active together with her family. Because every movement counts – especially for older people. This can also be a waltz in the living room. Studies clearly show that exercise not only strengthens the immune system, it also builds healthy muscle mass, which in turn helps us in case of illness. Unfortunately, you lose muscle mass much faster than you build it up!
Petra Schmid is currently working from home, where she is planning a new study on how feedback affects the motivation and focus of people working remotely. As an Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour with a background in psychology, she recommends a strict routine: getting up at the same time every day, getting dressed, taking breaks and making a to-do list every day to stay focused and efficient. In addition, she adds: “You should basically stop working in the evening, and make a new list of tasks you want to accomplish the next day.”
Andreas Wallraff is currently running the Quantum Device Lab from home. The Professor of Solid State Physics has a lot to organise and coordinate, now that his group is not allowed to enter the university buildings. “We’re working on results that we acquired earlier and writing up some papers. And we are planning for the future after this is resolved – hopefully soon,” he says. Even though his team has organised itself well, they are all looking forward to the day they can return to the labs.
For more information on quantum engineering please also listen to our podcast no 14!
Viola Vogel, Professor at the Laboratory of Applied Mechanobiology, talks to the ETH Podcast about how soap, ginger, rinsing our mouths and gargling can make us more resistant against viruses – and reduce the risk of infection with the coronavirus. And she also has one urgent request: “To everyone out there who is smoking right now, take this crisis seriously and stop smoking. It might be the thing that helps you to survive.”
In response to these exceptional times, the monthly ETH Podcast will appear as a series of short items dealing with various aspects of the novel form of coronavirus and all its ramifications. We’ll be starting with ETH President Joël Mesot. President Mesot is working from home – like nearly all ETH members at the moment. ETH Zurich was one of the first universities to close all facilities and switch to online teaching in response to the coronavirus pandemic, including those in Singapore, Basel and Lugano. "The main challenge is making sure that our students do not suffer from this situation,” he says. Mesot is navigating the university through this phase, together with his colleagues on the Executive Board. In the ETH Podcast, he talks about why ETH was so quick in deciding, how he has experienced the past few days, and what the most significant challenges are.
Samuel Kunz has quadriplegia and needs a wheelchair to get about. Right now he’s preparing to take part in the CYBATHLON 2020. The CYBATHLON is a unique championship organised by ETH Zurich in which people with physical disabilities compete against each other to complete everyday tasks using state-of-the-art technical assistance systems. With the support of neuroscientist Rea Lehner and a team from ETH Zurich, Samuel is training his brain to navigate a car through a computer racecourse via a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI). The ETH podcast follows him through a test run and Samuel talks about what it takes to prepare for the competition.
He built one of the largest modular synthesizers in the world: Joe Paradiso is Professor at the MIT Media Lab in Media Arts and Sciences, and he also plays an important role in the international scene of electronic music. Much of what Joe does today started in the 1980ies as a postdoc in the department of physics at ETH Zurich. While he was researching in Zurich in the daytime, he created sounds and started to build a synthesizer (the Paradiso Synth.) at night. One of his favourite places to record audio material was the parking garage at the ETH Campus Hönggerberg. In our Podcast, he explains how his fascination for that obscure place grew, and why it is essential for scientists like him to think out of the box. We will also be listening to audio material, and stream sounds from Joe’s massive synthesizer that is sitting in his basement in Massachusetts. Joe stopped by at the ETH Podcast Studio before traveling to Davos during the World Economic Forum.
Renana and Roi Poranne are both senior scientists at ETH Zurich: Renana in Chemistry, Roi, in Computer Sciences. But they are not only committed researchers, they are also parents to their nine and five years old children.
In the December Episode of the ETH Podcast, Roi and Renana talk about how they manage life between research and family. They tell us their secrets of how to bring everything under one roof and give advice to young researchers thinking about starting a family.
As of this semester, it is possible to do a master’s degree in Quantum Engineering at ETH Zürich. What actually is Quantum Engineering? Who is studying this new subject? In this episode of the ETH Podcast we accompany a student, talk to a professor about the curricula and also ask people from the industry what their hopes are in the graduating class in Quantum Engineering from ETH Zürich.
Nicola Spaldin, Professor of Materials Theory at ETH Zürich, is one of the leading researchers in her field. She was awarded with some of the most prestigious prizes for her pioneering work in the area of multiferroics. Multiferroics are materials that are both magnetic and electrical. Having both properties in one material simultaneously is what makes multiferroics special. Nicola Spaldin conducts research projects and aims to make computers energy efficient. In this episode of the ETH-Podcast we talk to her about her sparking energy and motivation to teach and research and listen to her play the clarinet with her chamber music ensemble.
“How Talent Thrives” is a subject that university, as well as industry, is interested in. The Times Higher Education (THE) summit will bring leaders from around the world to ETH Zurich to explore the topics regarding talent. In the ETH Podcast, Rector Sarah Springman and Professor Manu Kapur are going to talk about how they seek for talented people and how talents, learning skills, and knowledge can merge.
The pace of technological progress is rapid. Artificial intelligence and machine learning make us look at human intelligence in a new light. In the podcast, we talk to the ETH professors Benjamin Grewe, Simone Schürle, and Thomas Hofmann about the advantages and the dangers of Artificial Intelligence. We also take a glimpse into the future and talk about new technologies such as little implants to enhance human brains. How much has fiction already become a reality?
What do grasshoppers, crickets and mealworms taste like? While some people can’t overcome their disgust, others enjoy eating these crawly creatures fried or as a chunky burger. In the ETH Podcast, we talk to ETH experts Christina Hartman, department of Environmental Systems Science and professor Alexander Mathys, department of Health Sciences and Technology about whether one can overcome disgust and what the benefits are - for people and the environment - if more insects instead of meat end up on our plates.
ETH researcher Grace Crain thinks on a galactic scale. She is hoping to develop an ecosystem that could provide food, drinking water and clean air to astronauts on a space station or to the inhabitants of a Moon or Mars base. In this ETH podcast, she explains why she chooses to use human urine and faeces to fertilise her plants.
Computer scientist Hoda Heidari and Elliott Ash, Professor for Law, Economics, and Data Science, talk about the huge digital footprint that we leave behind us on a daily basis. They also discuss how big data is changing the world and our perceptions, why governments are still lagging behind this transformation and how algorithms can learn and become fairer in the process.
Many small, local steps may lead more effectively to peace than big dreams of a perfect state. This principle lies at the heart of an innovative approach to conflict mediation developed by the late Kenyan mediator Dekha Ibrahim Abdi and ETH peace researcher Simon Mason. In this podcast, Simon Mason and Kaltuma Hassan Noorow, the mediator’s daughter, talk about their experiences in Kenya and Switzerland. They also refer to their unconditional will to work – and live – for global peace, not for hatred.
Julia Wysling, a 28-year-old mathematics graduate and former VSETH President, and Richard Ernst, the 85-year-old Nobel laureate in chemistry, talk about their alma mater, their experiences abroad – plus the challenges they faced when returning to Switzerland – and what they’re most passionate about (besides science, of course). This special episode of the podcast forms as a supplement to the current issue of the ETH magazine Globe, which focuses on the 150th anniversary of the ETH Alumni Association.
Last November, news from China shook the research community. Scientist, He Jiankui claimed he had edited the genomes of twin girls with the CRISPR/Cas technology. Effy Vayena, Professor of Bioethics at ETH Zurich, and Hantao Zhao, a Chinese PhD student at Disney Research and the Chair of Cognitive Science at ETH Zurich, discuss the ethical implications of this case. Does the nationality of researchers play a role in ethical views and how does global competition in science influence ethical decisions?
The ETH spin-off ANYbotics offers a very special product: a dog-like robot that goes by the name of ANYmal. ANYmal is already a star on YouTube and he even appeared in the sci-fi series "The X-Files". But movie star isn’t the main role he’s supposed to play – in the future, ANYmal is to play a leading role in maintenance work in the sewerage system or on offshore platforms. However, for this to happen, the company must identify potential customers and convince them of ANYmal’s capabilities.
Haelixa is a young ETH spin-off that aims to commercialise robust DNA-based tracers for tracking fluids and solids. Currently, Haelixa occupies offices and laboratories in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Lab (ieLab) at ETH Zurich. The ieLab acts as an incubator for start-ups, a place where ideas can mature and be made marketable. Spin-off founder Michela Puddu is happy to have this support, as there are enough other challenges involved in setting up a company. In our third podcast episode, she and her colleague Punit Mehra talk about these challenges.
Would you be willing to spend four days and nights developing a project with strangers? And what about doing it in public in a glass box? The InCube Challenge organised by the ETH Entrepreneur Club, a student-run non-profit organisation, requires participants to do just that. Geomatics student Agnieszka Rozniak has taken up this challenge. In our latest podcast episode, we accompany her and Sebastian Pinegger, one of the co-organisers, during these intense days.
In the first episode of the new ETH podcast, we travel to Los Angeles with the students from Swissloop to the third Hyperloop Pod Competition. SpaceX founder Elon Musk is using the competition to advance his Hyperloop vision: that one day capsules will transport people and goods from A to B via vacuum tubes at almost the speed of sound. The student teams presenting the most promising concepts have the opportunity to test their transport capsules – known as “pods” – for a week on the SpaceX site. Over 1,000 student teams from all over the world applied to take part. Swissloop, an association of students from ETH Zurich and other Swiss universities, was one of the 20 teams that received an invitation to the 2018 competition. But the field gets even narrower in the final: only the three best pods get to travel through the 1.25-kilometre long vacuum tube, and the fastest one wins. Hear for yourself how Swissloop members Cassandra, Luca and Hanno experienced their time at the competition, with all of its highs and lows.
On Thursday, 6 December 2018, we will start with our new podcast. The first four episodes deal with different aspects of entrepreneurship at ETH Zurich. We'll get to know the students of the Swissloop project who take part in Elon Musk's Hyperloop competition, hear about the Incube Challenge organised by the ETH Entrepreneurclub, talk to Michela Puddu, co-founder of the ETH spin-off Haelixa, who is currently getting investors on board and find out more about the tasks of ANYmal, a quadrupedal robot designed for autonomous operation in challenging environments. Listen in!