Fascinating research,
or “what are they actually doing there?”

23. May 2013

Waste incineration: the last word in cleanliness?

Energy and Environment Environment

Household waste always used to end up left untreated in landfills, and the effects of this practice are well-known: these waste disposal sites were quite often ecological "death zones". With the incineration of municipal waste, there was some mitigation of this problem: despite the overall increase in quantities of waste, the areas claimed by landfill have been limited in recent decades thanks to waste recycling and incineration. However, waste incineration remains far from a panacea. Some combustion products that are already present in the burnt materials or that arise just during the combustion process itself are harmful to human health and the environment and some of them still find their way out of waste incineration plants and into landfill sites as their final destination.

17. May 2013

Experimente in Millionstelsekunden

Matter and Material Large Scale Facilities Research Using Muons

Myonen – instabile Elementarteilchen – bieten Forschenden wichtige Einblicke in den Aufbau der Materie. Sie liefern Informationen über Vorgänge in modernen Materialien, über die Eigenschaften von Elementarteilchen und über die Grundstrukturen der physikalischen Welt. Viele Myonenexperimente sind nur am Paul Scherrer Institut möglich, weil hier besonders intensive Myonenstrahlen zur Verfügung stehen.


This news release is only available in German.

10. May 2013

Air quality in the megacity Paris better than expected

Energy and Environment Environment

Megacities are often perceived by the public to be major sources of air pollution, which affect their surroundings as well. However, recent studies show that the environmental credentials of cities with over one million inhabitants are not so bad after all. An international team of researchers, including scientists from the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), has now confirmed, on the basis of aerosol measurements carried out in Paris, that so-called post-industrial cities affect the air quality of their immediate surroundings far less than might be thought.

7. May 2013

The idea-collector

SwissFEL SwissFEL Experiments Large Scale Facilities

The X-ray laser SwissFEL will provide researchers with novel experimental opportunities for gaining insights into a large variety of materials and processes. But, how do we identify which scientists will benefit most from the facility and in what way the facility should be configured to best meet their needs? Bruce Patterson, the SwissFEL’s idea-collector, explains how this search is done.

5. May 2013

Tiny Magnets as a Model System

Media Releases Matter and Material Materials Research Research Using Synchrotron Light

Scientists use nano-rods to investigate how matter assembles
To make the magnetic interactions between the atoms visible, scientists at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have developed a special model system. It is so big that it can be easily observed under an X-ray microscope, and mimics the tiniest movements in Nature. The model: rings made from six nanoscale magnetic rods, whose north and south poles attract each other. At room temperature, the magnetisation direction of each of these tiny rods varies spontaneously. Scientists were able to observe the magnetic interactions between these active rods in real time. These research results were published on May 5 in the journal “Nature Physics”.