On 10 July 2022, an okapi, or forest giraffe, was born at Basel Zoo. The new arrival is only the fifth calf to be born at the zoo over more than 20 years. The newly born calf named “Toka” is the son of mother Ebony (10) and father Imba (15). Described as strong and curious, […]
World’s most powerful particle accelerator now operating at record energy
On 5 July 2022, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator located just outside Geneva started operating at new higher record energy levels. After more than three years of upgrade and maintenance work the LHC is back online. Beams of particles have been circulating in CERN’s accelerator complex since April, with the LHC machine and […]
Enormous Swiss water battery to start operating next week
A water battery that can store up to 20 million kWh of electricity constructed in the Swiss canton of Valais is scheduled to start operating on 1 July 2022, announced the company Nant de Drance SA this week. The Nant de Drance power plant is a pumped storage power plant in a subterranean cavern located […]
Switzerland’s underground freight project gets start date
This week, a project to build an underground freight tunnel network stretching from Geneva to St Gallen, was given a start date of 1 August 2022 by the Federal Council, reported RTS. The Cargo sous terrain (CST) project will connect Switzerland’s key hubs starting in 2031. CST aims to take the strain off the road […]
Swiss post drops pioneering delivery drones
After five years of pioneering work, Swiss Post has decided to abandon it drone project. The experimental autonomous drones have attracted much global interest since their launch in 2017. However, given the current regulatory environment for unmanned aerial vehicles in Switzerland the company said it is unable to use the drones widely enough or operate […]
The Swiss start-up generating heat from basements
Heat pumps are high-efficiency electric heaters that take heat from the air or ground and concentrate it. Currently, extracting geothermic ground heat typically involves costly processes such as boring holes deep into the ground or laying long lengths of pipe underground. Enerdrape, a start-up at EPFL in Lausanne, has come up will a simpler way […]
Switzerland to see lunar eclipse on 16 May 2022
On May 16, 2022 (the night of May 15 in the Western Hemisphere), the Moon enters the Earth’s shadow, creating a total lunar eclipse, the first since May of 2021, according to NASA. The NASA animation above shows the changing appearance of the Moon as it travels into and out of the Earth’s shadow. The […]
Swisscom fixed and mobile networks out on Tuesday
Swisscom’s telephone network went down on Tuesday for 30 minutes, reported RTS. On Tuesday 3 May 2022 between 22:23 and 22:53 customers across Switzerland using Swisscom’s fixed and mobile networks were unable to access the internet. According to Swisscom, the outage was related to maintenance work. Much to the frustration of football fans the outage […]
CERN collider restart could revolutionise physics
On 22 April 2022, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator located on the outskirts of Geneva, restarted after a break of more than three years for maintenance and upgrade work. One hope is that the LHC, a machine that smashes protons together, can find evidence of a fifth […]
99% of Swiss emergency sirens pass the test
Every year, Switzerland tests its apocalyptic-sounding sirens on the first Wednesday of February. This year it was done on 2 February 2022 at 13:30. The tests finished at 14:00 for general sirens, and 15:00 for flood sirens. If an alarm sounds outside of these times it is not a test. This year’s test revealed that […]
