Archive News

August 12, 2021Decisions in water management are often associated with large uncertainties. Quantifying and communicating these uncertainties is crucial for science to support transparent decision-making in society.

August 10, 2021Sam Derrer has been Head of Vocational Training at Eawag for ten years, so he knows just how varied the apprenticeships are, and how trainees here are both supported and stretched.

August 6, 2021It was long assumed that cyanobacteria were mainly responsible for fixing nitrogen on early Earth, thus making nitrogen available to the biosphere. In a paper published today in “Nature Communications”, a team of researchers from Germany and Switzerland now shows that purple sulfur bacteria could have contributed substantially to nitrogen fixation.

August 5, 2021Blue-green algae and other phytoplankton are very important for the proper functioning of aquatic ecosystems. When they accumulate in high quantities, however, they can be harmful to people and animals because some blue-green algae species produce toxic chemicals. For this reason, the aquatic research institute Eawag is currently working on methods to improve the prediction of bloom events.

August 2, 2021Salmonella infections can result in a broad spectrum of illnesses. According to the latest research findings, one reason why some cases are harmless while others are very severe lies in the intestinal flora.

July 29, 2021A new theory supports the controversial hypothesis that the planets affect solar activity. It puts forward a mechanism by which the very small influence of the planets could exert its rhythm on such a large system as the Sun. If the theory is confirmed, it could possibly be used to predict solar activity more accurately. This would be of great interest, as large solar flares can cripple electronic infrastructure.

July 22, 2021Each year at Eawag, around 160 Master’s and Bachelor’s students are supervised and often directly involved in research projects. Again and again, this collaboration – as well as Eawag’s flat hierarchies and interdisciplinary culture – leads to outstanding Master’s theses.

July 19, 2021A comprehensive inventory of Swiss glacial lakes shows how the lake landscape in the high mountains has changed since the end of the Little Ice Age.

July 15, 2021Open Science is an important development in science - open access to the results of research. Eawag supports these and makes a growing part of its research data, including descriptions, images and even software, available publicly and free of charge on the Eawag platform ERIC or, in special cases, on discipline-specific, international databases. ERIC complements the long-standing platform DORA for scientific publications.

July 8, 2021Eawag’s practice-oriented courses (known as PEAK) provide training for professionals. Isabelle Schläppi of the PEAK Office looks back over a year marked by the COVID-19 pandemic.