Bern (ots) - From nitrogen pollution to bullying in schools: in 2023, the SNSF invested 961 million francs in its regular research funding. It approved a further 235 million francs for the Horizon Europe transitional measures. Excess nitrogen pollutes water and the air. To what extent can nitrogen emissions from agricultural land be reduced by an indigenous plant, ...
Bern (ots) - The Federal Council draft of the Dispatch on the promotion of education, research and innovation (ERI Dispatch) for the period 2025-2028 is strongly influenced by concerns about the overall state of government finances. Thus there will be fewer financial resources available to the ERI sector in 2025 than in the previous year. As a consequence, there is a risk that the level of services will be cut back and ...
Bern (ots) - The r4d programme of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the Swiss National Science Foundation is ending. It funded 57 research partnerships between Switzerland and countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Research can help solve global economic, environmental and societal problems. With this aim in mind, the Swiss Programme for ...
Bern (ots) - Identifying terrorists by analysing their online activities is an approach that is sometimes at odds with international law, especially if the outcome is death. A study has documented this problematic legal and ethical issue. These days, virtually everyone leaves footprints in the digital world. Terrorists are no exception. Intelligence agencies realised ...
Bern (ots) - Ein Protein reduziert die Lebenserwartung von Fadenwürmern. Diese Entdeckung wirft die Frage auf, ob es beim Menschen ebenfalls den Alterungsprozess mitbewirkt. Selbst von den am besten erforschten Genen und Proteinen kennt man noch längst nicht alle Geheimnisse. Wie das Schweizer Taschenmesser haben sie zahlreiche, teilweise unbekannte Funktionen. Mit ...
Bern (ots) - Researchers have developed a method for triggering auditory hallucinations in healthy people. They are investigating the causes of a phenomenon that can be a huge burden for people with psychiatric illnesses. Studies indicate that five to ten per cent of all people sometimes hear voices - those of dead relatives or higher beings, for example - without having any kind of illness. In other words, the phenomenon is not restricted to people with psychiatric ...
Bern (ots) - The new SNSF Foundation Council has been elected. Smaller in size, it brings together leading figures from science, business and government, and will take up its duties at the beginning of 2024. The SNSF is a foundation under private law with a funding mandate under public law. As the senior governing body, the Foundation Council is responsible for ensuring that the foundation stays on mission and for ...
Bern (ots) - Insights into Covid-19, recommendations for health authorities and vaccines: the findings and synthesis report for the Swiss National Science Foundation's National Research Programme "Covid-19" (NRP 78) were presented today. The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) launched the National Research ...
Bern (ots) - Over-fertilised waterways, impoverished soils: the use of phosphorous in agriculture is creating a dilemma, and it all began thousands of years ago. This has been verified by an analysis funded by the SNSF. It is well known that phosphorous from agricultural fertilisation and wastewater is harmful to lakes. But the entry of phosphorous into water is also contributing to the scarcity of this substance, which ...
Bern (ots) - The new backup protocol for Whatsapp messages was subjected to a comprehensive security analysis by a research team. One identified weakness can be resolved with a strong password. Every day, people around the world exchange billions of messages using the Whatsapp messaging service. End-to-end encryption is used to ensure they are secure. However, until recently the automatic backups of chats did not enjoy the same level of security, as the personal key to the ...
Bern (ots) - People are sometimes reluctant to read a newspaper or follow the news on TV. Why should that be? Although negativity is often cited as a reason for avoidance, it's not the only reason - according to a researcher from Fribourg. Many people deliberately avoid anything to do with current affairs. According to a recent survey by Reuters, 40 per cent of Americans prefer not to read a newspaper or watch the news on a screen. The anxiety caused by current affairs is ...
Bern (ots) - The composition of blood stains changes over the course of weeks and months. Forensic medicine hopes to make use of this fact in future to convict suspects - or to prove their innocence. The blood-stained paper lay on the roof terrace for almost a year, protected from the rain but otherwise exposed to the elements. Fortunately it wasn't evidence of a violent crime; no, the drops of blood were part of a ...
Bern (ots) - Mosquitoes have thermal preferences. This is an important parameter to better predict outbreaks of diseases transmitted by these insects. "If they have a choice, when it's hot, mosquitoes hide in a cool place to rest," says Niels Verhulst, author of a study recently published in the journal Thermal Biology (*). The entomologist from the University of Zurich summarises the results of the experiment he ...