NO. 4/2019 NEW MATERIALS How materials are becoming one with their functions PAGE 12 Building bridges Helping people with para- Martina Hirayama sets the for scientific staff plegia to walk again education system on track PAGE 32 PAGE 36 PAGE 46 EDITORIAL GLOBE NO. 4/2019 Marvellous materials threshold of an exceptionally fertile period of development. With its interdisciplinary Competence Center for Materials and Processes, ETH Zurich is well equipped to play a key role in bringing this to fruition. I have always found it fascinating how new ideas can emerge through the meeting of great minds from entirely different back- grounds. For example, when a researcher who develops self-healing materials for medical applications teams up with a civil Joël Mesot, President of ETH Zurich engineer to discuss the building materials of the future. Or when a researcher special- ising in soft materials and a scientist Cutting-edge materials research is paving researching magnetic nanostructures join the way for developments we could pre- forces to develop a material with shape viously only dream of – from biodegradable memory. You can find out more about bridges and concrete that heals its own these exciting developments in this new cracks to stretchable, flexible batteries and issue of Globe. implants that dissolve in the body once they are no longer needed. Scientists are I hope you enjoy reading it! also equipping materials with properties they do not naturally possess, as in the case of Nicola Spaldin’s multiferroics. At the same time, innovative approaches to materials research are helping us design and use materials in more efficient and eco-friendly ways. These advances are fuelled not only by collaboration between very diverse discip- lines, but also by new methods of addi- tive manufacturing such as 3D printing. Per sonally, I believe we are standing on the Globe, the magazine for ETH Zurich and ETH Alumni Cover illustration: Vasjen Katro / Editorial image: Markus Bertschi GLOBE NO. 4/2019 CONTENTS NEW AND NOTED NEW AND NOTED COMMUNITY Sustainability 5 News from ETH Zurich 31 Connections to ETH EMISSION-FREE 6 A mountain of data 32 Fifty years of AVETH Building bridges for scientific SHIPPING 8 Physically and mentally fitter staff Shipping accounts for around 3 per- Permafrost research on the 35 Column cent of global CO2 emissions. Experts FOCUS Hörnligrat ridge – page 6 from the Sustainability in Business 12 New materials Lab (sus.lab) at ETH Zurich therefore Scientists are developing a new REPORT decided to map out some of the pos- generation of dynamic materials 36 Helping people with paraplegia sible paths to achieving emission-free that are perfectly attuned to their to walk again shipping. Petrissa Eckle and her team functions. Two teams demonstrate their see zero-emission propulsion sys - exoskeletons at an event in tems in the form of electric motors, 17 The power inside the run-up to Cybathlon 2020. fuel cells and combustion engines Metamaterials defy conventions, powered by ammonia as holding the making rigid media flexible. greatest potential in the near future. CONNECTED International merchant ships and large freighters are responsible for the lion’s 20 Seemingly impossible 42 Encounters at ETH share of CO2 emissions from shipping. 5 Materials scientist Nicola Spaldin Ready to stand – page 36 discusses her fascination with 44 Agenda multiferroics. Medicine Biology 23 Materials, get into shape! PROFILE ETH researchers are developing 46 The right chemistry for ERI AI IMPROVES IMAGING CURBING ANTIBIOTIC materials that change shape on ETH alumna Martina Hirayama RESISTANCE command. is the perfect choice to bring Scientists at ETH Zurich and the Uni- delivered superior-quality images. out the strengths of the Swiss versity of Zurich have used machine They had these pictures analysed by an 26 Biodegradable bridges education system. learning methods to improve opto- artificial neural network, which was According to laboratory experiments New ideas lay the foundations acoustic imaging. This technique can able to learn the features of the conducted by researchers from ETH for living structures that respond be used for applications such as visual- high-quality images. Zurich and the University of Basel, to their environments. 5 QUESTIONS ising blood vessels, studying brain ac- Next, the researchers discarded antibiotic resistance spreads not only 50 Daniel Farinotti tivity, characterising skin lesions and the majority of the sensors, so that only where antibiotics are used in large 28 New materials in action Melting glaciers mean plenty diagnosing breast cancer. 128 or 32 sensors remained, with a det- quantities. Reducing antibiotic use An overview of the latest of work for this glaciologist. However, the quality of the ren- rimental effect on the image quality. alone is therefore not sufficient to developments from ETH labs. dered images depends heavily on the Due to the lack of data, distortions curb resistance, and should be com- number of sensors used by the device: known as streak type artefacts ap- bined with measures to prevent the the more sensors, the better the quality peared in the images. It turned out, spread of resistant germs. of the image. The team led by Daniel however, that the previously trained Razansky, Professor of Biomedical neural network was able to largely cor- Imaging at the University of Zurich rect for these distortions, thus bring- IMPRINT — Publisher: ETH Alumni / ETH Zurich, ISSN 2235-7289 Editorial team: Martina Märki (head), Fabio Bergamin, and ETH Zurich, searched for a way to ing the image quality closer to the Corinne Johannssen, Nicol Klenk, Karin Köchle, Corina Oertli, Norbert Staub, Michael Walther, Felix Würsten Contributors: Claudia Hoffmann, Oliver Morsch, Samuel Schlaefli Advertising administration: ETH Alumni Communications, [email protected], enhance image quality of low-cost measurements that had been obtained +41 44 632 51 24 Advertising management: Fachmedien, Zürichsee Werbe AG, Stäfa, [email protected], +41 44 928 56 53 opto acoustic devices that possess only with all 512 sensors. Design: Crafft AG, Zurich Printing and proofreading: Neidhart + Schön AG, Zurich Translation: Burton, Van Iersel & Whitney GmbH, a small number of ultrasonic sensors. Munich; Clare Bourne, Anna Focà, ETH Zurich Auflage: 39,500 German, 31,500 English, published quarterly Subscriptions: To do this, they started off by using CHF 20 annually (four issues); included in full membership of the ETH Alumni Association Orders and changes of address: [email protected] and for alumni at www.alumni.ethz.ch/myalumni Contact information: www.ethz.ch/globe, [email protected], a self-developed high-end optoacous- Antibiotic-resistant salmonella is +41 44 632 42 52 Also available as a free tablet version. tic scanner with 512 sensors, which a particular problem. Images: Peter Rüegg, Urs Matter, Daniel Winkler Images: iStockphoto; Stefan Fattinger ETH GLOBE 4/2019 NEW AND NOTED NEW AND NOTED Ten years of permafrost research A MOUNTAIN OF DATA In the hot summer of 2003, a massive rockfall from the Hörnligrat ridge of the Matterhorn dislodged 1,500 cubic metres of rock. This spectacular event sparked an unusual research project by the name of PermaSense. Today, geos cientists and engineers from ETH Zurich and other institutions are studying the impact of climate change on permafrost in the steep rocky terrain of high mountain regions. Here, the ground is permanently frozen; when the ice melts, the danger of rockfalls and land- slides increases. Using a combination of thermal, kine- matic and seismic data – provided by a net- work of wireless sensors installed on the Hörnli grat – researchers can now precisely detect changes in the rock mass. To date, this network has supplied over 115 million data points, which are fed into the internet in real time. Over the past ten years, this has gener- 7 6 ated an extensive dataset that is now one of the largest in the history of permafrost research. In future, this knowledge could be used to develop early-warning systems. The image from 2012 shows ETH re- search group leader Jan Beutel and project partner Samuel Weber conducting mainten- ance work in the detachment zone on the Hörnligrat, at a height of over 3,500 metres above sea level. For the past ten years, a wireless → www.permasense.ch sensor network on the Hörnligrat ridge of the Matterhorn has provided data that is unprecedented in terms of quantity and quality. ETH GLOBE 4/2019 Image: Peter Rüegg ETH GLOBE 4/2019 NEW AND NOTED NEW AND NOTED Military psychology New ETH Physically and mentally fitter podcasts Soldiers must be fit enough to successfully accomplish that help people become better lead- is whether they still have enough in re- Quantum Engineering – their mission. As well as physical fitness, that also includes ers: maintaining a degree of compos- serve to accomplish the task under and what it is ure in a crisis, the ability to stay focused pressure – and how quickly they re- As of this semester, it is possible mental resilience in challenging situations. and filter out what’s important in cover from that challenge. to do a master’s degree in Quantum high-pressure situations, and a funda- Engineering at ETH Zürich. What mentally positive and confident atti- Interest from the army and beyond actually is Quantum Engineering? tude. “It’s not a matter of people being Annen’s confidence has been buoyed Who is studying this new subject? like some kind of rock and simply let- by the results so far: “Our studies show In this episode of the ETH Podcast ting all the stress bounce off them,” that our training has genuine benefits we accompany a student, talk to ubert Annen confesses with a says Annen. “It’s more about the abil- and that officers subsequently stay a professor about the curricula and smile that the subject he teaches ity to respond flexibly to challenges calmer when dealing with stress.” also ask people from the industry H has sometimes been dismissed and setbacks.” These findings have also attracted at- what their hopes are in the graduating as a soft approach to a tough subject.