Tootfinder

The chemical #habitability of Earth and rocky planets prescribed by core formation: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-026-02775-z -> Researchers from ETH Zurich have demonstrated why only a small number of planets have the chemical requirements for life – and why the Earth is so fortunate: https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2026/02/why-only-a-small-number-of-planets-are-suitable-for-life.html

Finally some research into the decision making processes for #cycling infrastructure!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2950105925000476

we truly out here binch #fedifc

Uber plans to expand its robotaxi services to Hong Kong, Madrid, Houston, and Zurich in 2026; Hong Kong will be Uber's first autonomous market in Asia (Natalie Lung/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

London-based data center company GTR raised $1.5B from KKR and ~$400M from Oak Hill to develop its facilities in England, Barcelona, Zurich, and Tel Aviv (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/89040806-8e66-49b5-a2d0-37d813af5d01

Invariant Price of Anarchy: a Metric for Welfarist Traffic Control
Ilia Shilov, Mingjia He, Heinrich H. Nax, Emilio Frazzoli, Gioele Zardini, Saverio Bolognani
https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.05843 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.05843 https://arxiv.org/html/2512.05843
arXiv:2512.05843v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: The Price of Anarchy (PoA) is a standard metric for quantifying inefficiency in socio-technical systems, widely used to guide policies like traffic tolling. Conventional PoA analysis relies on exact numerical costs. However, in many settings, costs represent agents' preferences and may be defined only up to possibly arbitrary scaling and shifting, representing informational and modeling ambiguities. We observe that while such transformations preserve equilibrium and optimal outcomes, they change the PoA value. To resolve this issue, we rely on results from Social Choice Theory and define the Invariant PoA. By connecting admissible transformations to degrees of comparability of agents' costs, we derive the specific social welfare functions which ensure that efficiency evaluations do not depend on arbitrary rescalings or translations of individual costs. Case studies on a toy example and the Zurich network demonstrate that identical tolling strategies can lead to substantially different efficiency estimates depending on the assumed comparability. Our framework thus demonstrates that explicit axiomatic foundations are necessary in order to define efficiency metrics and to appropriately guide policy in large-scale infrastructure design robustly and effectively.
toXiv_bot_toot

I'm sitting at Zurich Airport waiting to pick someone up. Next to me sits a German person who has propped up their iPad on their suitcase. They are in a video conference with several people from banks and legal, discussing tax "optimization" from Germany by buying real estate in different US states and pretending to live elsewhere. On loudspeaker.
"Don't make a bank account, don't change your drivers license. We have checklists we can provide you."

I realized that I had forgotten my laptop in our apartment in Zurich just when the train left the station 😱
I have now arranged with my wife for a secret agent-style handover in Olten. Luckily, the EC to Olten leaves on the opposite side of the platform in Bern.
Man, I double and triple check, but sometimes I should quadruple check :-/
EDIT: well, it’s not the opposite side of the platform, but I made it.

I realized that I had forgotten my laptop in our apartment in Zurich just when the train left the station 😱
I have now arranged with my wife for a secret agent-style handover in Olten. Luckily, the EC to Olten leaves on the opposite side of the platform in Bern.
Man, I double and triple check, but sometimes I should quadruple check :-/
EDIT: well, it’s not the opposite side of the platform, but I made it.

I realized that I had forgotten my laptop in our apartment in Zurich just when the train left the station 😱
I have now arranged with my wife for a secret agent-style handover in Olten. Luckily, the EC to Olten leaves on the opposite side of the platform in Bern.
Man, I double and triple check, but sometimes I should quadruple check :-/
EDIT: well, it’s not the opposite side of the platform, but I made it.

#TIL about CYBATHLON #cybathlon

CYBATHLON
The official YouTube channel of CYBATHLON, an initiative of ETH Zurich. CYBATHLON of ETH Zurichoffers a platform to advance research in the field of assistive technology suitable for everyday use and to promote dialogue with the public about the inclusion of people with disabilities in daily life. Main driver is a unique championship in which people with physical disabilities compete against each other to complete everyday tasks using state-of-the-art technical assistance systems. For more inf…

High-bandwidth frequency domain multiplexed readout of transition-edge sensors for neutrinoless double beta decay searches
M. Adami\v{c} (McGill,LBNL), M. Beretta (UCB,INFN), J. Camilleri (LBNL,Virginia Tech), C. Capelli (LBNL,Zurich U.), M. A. Dobbs (McGill), T. Elleflot (LBNL), B. K. Fujikawa (LBNL), Yu. G. Kolomensky (LBNL,UCB), D. Mayer (MIT), J. Montgomery (McGill), V. Novosad (ANL), A. M. Sindhwad (UCB), V. Singh (UCB), G. Smecher (t0.technology), A. Suzuki (LBNL), B. Welliver (UCB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.23106 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.23106 https://arxiv.org/html/2601.23106
arXiv:2601.23106v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: The next-generation of cryogenic neutrinoless double-beta decay experiments require increasingly fast readout in order to improve background discrimination. These experiments, operated as cryogenic calorimeters at $\sim$10 mK, are usually read out by high-impedance neutron transmutation doped (NTD) thermistors, which provide good energy resolution, but are limited by $\sim$1 ms response times. Superconducting detectors, such as transition-edge sensors (TESs) with a time resolution of $\sim$100 $\mu$s, offer superior timing performance over NTD semiconductor bolometers. To make this technology viable for an application to a thousand or more channels, multiplexed readout is necessary in order to minimize the thermal load and radioactive contamination induced by the readout. Frequency-domain multiplexing readout (fMux) for TESs, previously developed at Berkeley Lab and McGill University, is currently in use for mm-wave telescopes with detector sampling rates in the order of 100 Hz. We demonstrate a new readout system, based on the McGill/Berkeley digital fMux readout, to satisfy the higher bandwidth and noise requirements of the next generation of TES-instrumented cryogenic calorimeters. The new readout samples detectors at 156 kHz, three orders of magnitude faster than its cosmology-oriented predecessor. Each multiplexing readout module comprises ten superconducting resonators in the MHz range and a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID), interfaced to high-bandwidth field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based electronics for digital signal processing and low-latency feedback.
toXiv_bot_toot

🫧 Artificial muscles use ultrasound-activated microbubbles to move
#machines

Artificial muscles use ultrasound-activated microbubbles to move
Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed artificial muscles that contain microbubbles and can be controlled with ultrasound. In the future, these muscles could be deployed in technical and medical settings as gripper arms, tissue patches, targeted drug delivery, or robots.

The first ISO8601ultras sticker are now available in the stickerbox at @… Zurich
#stickerart #stickers

@… Ça existe, je l’ai reçue de mon opticien Š Zurich – mais il n’y a pas de marque, désolé!

A look at Cybathlon, an event by ETH Zurich where researchers team up with people with disabilities in a competition to test brain-computer interfaces (Oliver Whang/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/scien…

At the Cybathlon, May the Best Brain-Computer Interface Win
Every four years at the Cybathlon, teams of researchers and technology “pilots” compete to see whose brain-computer interface holds the most promise.

💪 Muscle tissue from a 3D printer—produced in zero gravity
#muscle

Muscle tissue from a 3D printer—produced in zero gravity
Human health is the Achilles heel of space travel. Researchers at ETH Zurich have now succeeded in printing complex muscle tissue in zero gravity. This will enable drugs for space missions to be tested in the future.

Quels sont les points communs entre Zurich et Lausanne?

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBCRadio3's #EssentialClassics
Gustav Mahler, Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra & David Zinman:
🎵 Blumine (Symphony No.1 in D major - original version)
#GustavMahler #ZurichTonhalleOrchestra #DavidZinman

Seit letztem Samstag bin ich #FirstResponder der #GVZ #Zurich. 💓
Es werden noch weitere gesucht. Sämtliche Personen ab 18 Jahren mit Wohn- oder Arbeitsort im Kanton Zürich, die im Besitz eines gültigen #AED-BLS-SRC-Zertifikats sind, können sich als First Responder registrieren.
#firstaid

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBCRadio3's #EssentialClassics
Träd, Christian Erny & Zurich Chamber Singers:
🎵 Nous étions trois bergerettes
#Träd #ChristianErny #ZurichChamberSingers

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBCRadio3's #ClassicalLive
Johann Sebastian Bach, Alisa Weilerstein, Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra & Paavo Järvi:
🎵 Sarabande, from 'Cello Suite No. 4 in E flat, BWV 1010'
#JohannSebastianBach #AlisaWeilerstein #ZurichTonhalleOrchestra #PaavoJärvi #newRelease 🆕 single

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBCRadio3's #EssentialClassics
Gustav Mahler, Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra & David Zinman:
🎵 Blumine (Symphony No.1 in D major - original version)
#GustavMahler #ZurichTonhalleOrchestra #DavidZinman
#Spotify

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on BBCRadio3's #ChristmasAroundEurope
Ēriks Ešenvalds, Aigars Raumanis, Aigars Reinis, Annija Kristiāna Ādamsone, Sōla Choir & Kaspars Ādamsons:
🎵 Zurich Mass
#ĒriksEšenvalds #AigarsRaumanis #AigarsReinis #AnnijaKristiānaĀdamsone #SōlaChoir
(There are still 11 days until 🎄 #Christmas)