The former Swiss fighter pilot Andre Borschberg has been forced to make an unscheduled landing in the Japanese city of Nagoya. The 100% solar powered plane was bound for Hawaii after taking off from Nanjing, China on Sunday morning. The five-day five-night trip from Nanjing to Hawaii was the longest and most difficult leg of […]
First high powered particle collision photos from CERN
For the first time, on the night of 20 May 2015, protons collided in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN at the record-breaking energy of 13 TeV. These test collisions were part of the systems set up that includes adjusting the collimators that protect the machine and detectors from particles that stray from the […]
Unique summer opportunity at EPFL for undergrad students
Every year at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), the School of Life Sciences offers 25 high-potential international undergraduate students full access to its top researchers and labs through its Summer Research Program (SRP). The selection is tough; 25 selected out of nearly 600 applications makes the programme’s acceptance rate even more […]
Swiss immigration vote: no impact on top university enrollments
According to Tribune de Geneve, the Swiss vote on 9 February 2014 is not hurting enrollments at top universities in Switzerland as some had predicted. The two prestigious Swiss science universities, Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich, had record enrollments in 2014. Up by 1.8%, 28,537 students and doctoral […]
High altitude solar impulse selfies
Solar Impulse 2 successfully landed in Nanjing, China last week. Bertrand Piccard flew this leg and on the way took this high altitude selfie from the side of the plane and then shared it on twitter. If the twitter time stamp was set to local Chinese time then it is possible that Bertrand tweeted this […]
CERN takes first step into uncharted territory
Geneva, 5 April 2015. After a minor hiccup around two weeks ago requiring repair of a short circuit in one of the super cooled magnets that power the particle accelerator, proton beams were fired today for the first time in two years in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. The LHC is the most […]
Solar plane’s high altitude flight to China
Solar Impulse has departed on its 5th and most challenging flight to date on its round-the-world journey. It took off from Mandalay in Myanmar at 3:36am (local time) on March 30, 2015. It is bound for Chongqing in China. The anticipated flight time is 19 hours covering a distance of 1,375 kilometres. It is a […]
CERN blows a fuse
After planning to restart the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva on 23 March 2015 it has now been delayed for several weeks. A short circuit in one of the powerful magnets that power the particle beams is responsible. Because the magnets are chilled to close to absolute zero it will need to be warmed […]
Path of total solar eclipse
Friday 20 March 2015, will bring a total solar eclipse to Europe. Electrical power grids across Europe will be hit by a drop in solar-produced electricity. In the European Union the drop could be as high as 34 GW. Temperatures will also drop by around 3 degrees Celsius. It will occur in the morning and […]
CERN: Bigger bangs imminent
“What happens when the mass of the black hole eventually becomes extremely small is not quite clear, but the most reasonable guess is that it would disappear completely in a tremendous final burst of emission, equivalent to the explosion of millions of H-bombs.” – Dr. Stephen Hawking The scientists at CERN Geneva are gearing up […]
