Publications related to Life | EPFL Graph Search

Optimality principles for the analysis of biological processes across scales: From enzyme kinetics to microbiome dynamics

Microorganisms are essential for life on Earth, performing key roles in numerous biological processes. Their influence extends across a wide spectrum, from human health and ecological balance to advancements in biotechnology and industrial applications. Th ...

EPFL2024

Company Town : To Provide and to Separate. An Open Letter to Giorgio Agamben [by] Vittorio Gregotti

Anna Karla De Almeida Milani

This letter, written by the architect Vittorio Gregotti to the philosopher Giorgio Agamben, was originally published in 1997 in the Italian Journal Rassegna, which Gregotti directed from 1979 to 1998. It is perhaps the very first time that a practicing arc ...

2023

Active lithoautotrophic and methane-oxidizing microbial community in an anoxic, sub-zero, and hypersaline High Arctic spring

Ianina Altshuler

Lost Hammer Spring, located in the High Arctic of Nunavut, Canada, is one of the coldest and saltiest terrestrial springs discovered to date. It perennially discharges anoxic (

2022

The microbiome of cryospheric ecosystems

Tom Ian Battin, Hannes Markus Peter, Susheel Bhanu Busi, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud, Leïla Ezzat, Massimo Bourquin, Tyler Joe Kohler, Stylianos Fodelianakis

The cryosphere includes those parts of Earth where water or soil is frozen, such as snow, ice, glaciers and permafrost soils. Here, the authors present a global inventory of cryospheric microbial communities and their genetic repertoires. ...

Nature Portfolio2022

Signatures of life course socioeconomic conditions in brain anatomy

Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Bogdan Draganski

Socioeconomic status (SES) plays a significant role in health and disease. At the same time, early-life conditions affect neural function and structure, suggesting the brain may be a conduit for the biological embedding of SES. Here, we investigate the bra ...

Wiley2022

Quand les artistes font forme en habitant ensemble. Usages, présences, imaginaires

Mathilde Coline Chénin

Taking root within a historical and transversal perspective of communities of artists at work, and of the relationship that they nourish with the places that host their creative activity, the present research intends to bring to light the grammars of "the ...

EPFL2022

A birth-death-migration model for life in astrophysical environments

Claudio Grimaldi

To assess the number of life-bearing worlds in astrophysical environments, it is necessary to take the intertwined processes of abiogenesis (birth), extinction (death), and transfer of life (migration) into account. We construct a mathematical model that i ...

OXFORD UNIV PRESS2021

Feasibility of Detecting Interstellar Panspermia in Astrophysical Environments

Claudio Grimaldi

The proposition that life can spread from one planetary system to another (interstellar panspermia) has a long history, but this hypothesis is difficult to test through observations. We develop a mathematical model that takes parameters such as the microbi ...

IOP PUBLISHING LTD2021

Quantifying the information impact of future searches for exoplanetary biosignatures

Claudio Grimaldi

One of the major goals for astronomy in the next decades is the remote search for biosignatures (i.e., the spectroscopic evidence of biological activity) in exoplanets. Here we adopt a Bayesian statistical framework to discuss the implications of such futu ...

National Academy of Sciences2020

Highlights of the Science and Life of Peter Varga (1946-2018)

Wolf-Dieter Schneider

Peter Varga has passed on October 27, 2018. His pioneering discoveries of chemical resolution at the atomic scale on surface alloys, atomic resolution of ultrathin alkali halides, nucleation of bcc iron in ultrathin films, and the microscopic structure of ...

2020

Multidisciplinary Approach to Treat Erectile Dysfunction

Mikaël Nils Sturny

Erectile dysfunction (ED) is a widespread disease affecting approximately 20% of men. With a rising incidence due to the global ageing of the world population, it is estimated that over 322 million patients will be affected in 2025. While not being a lifet ...

EPFL2020

Brain metabolic alterations in mice subjected to postnatal traumatic stress and in their offspring

João Miguel das Neves Duarte, Alberto Corcoba

Adverse environmental and social conditions early in life have a strong impact on health. They are major risk factors for mental diseases in adulthood and, in some cases, their effects can be transmitted across generations. The consequences of detrimental ...

Sage Publications Inc2017

α-Oxo-Ketenimines from Isocyanides and α-Haloketones: Synthesis and Divergent Reactivity

Qian Wang, Jieping Zhu, Mathias Mamboury

The palladium-catalyzed reaction of a-haloketones with isocyanides afforded -oxo-ketenimines through alpha-hydride elimination of the beta-oxo-imidoyl palladium intermediates. Reaction of these relatively stable alpha-oxo ketenimines with nucleophiles suc ...

Wiley-Blackwell2017

Stress, glucocorticoid receptor and social behaviors

Peripuberty, comprising childhood and adolescence, constitutes an important time window in the brain development and maturation. Exposure to prolonged stress during this period has been shown to increase the risk for the development of psychopathologies la ...

EPFL2017

Detecting nanoscale vibrations as signature of life

Giovanni Dietler, Sandor Kasas, Giovanni Longo, Francesco Simone Ruggeri, Petar Stupar

The existence of life in extreme conditions, in particular in extraterrestrial environments, is certainly one of the most intriguing scientific questions of our time. In this report, we demonstrate the use of an innovative nanoscale motion sensor in life-s ...

National Academy of Sciences2015

NAD(+) Metabolism and the Control of Energy Homeostasis: A Balancing Act between Mitochondria and the Nucleus

Johan Auwerx, Carlos Canto Alvarez, Keir Joe Menzies

NAD(+) has emerged as a vital cofactor that can rewire metabolism, activate sirtuins, and maintain mitochondrial fitness through mechanisms such as the mitochondrial unfolded protein response. This improved understanding of NAD(+) metabolism revived intere ...

Cell Press2015

MOVING ALONG In biomechanics, rehabilitation engineering, and movement analysis, Italian researchers are making great strides

Silvestro Micera

In Italy, biomechanics research and the analysis of human and animal movement have had a very long history, beginning with the exceptional pioneering work of Leonardo da Vinci. In 1489, da Vinci began investigating human anatomy, including an examination o ...

Ieee-Inst Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc2015

Peripubertal stress-induced behavioral changes are associated with altered expression of genes involved in excitation and inhibition in the amygdala

Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Stamatina Tzanoulinou, Orbicia Riccio Wicht

Early-life stress is a critical risk factor for developing psychopathological alterations later in life. This early adverse environment has been modeled in rats by exposure to stress during the peripubertal period-that is, corresponding to childhood and pu ...

Nature Publishing Group2014

Form, function, and evolution of living organisms

Andrea Rinaldo, Amos Maritan

Despite the vast diversity of sizes and shapes of living organisms, life's organization across scales exhibits remarkable commonalities, most notably through the approximate validity of Kleiber's law, the power law scaling of metabolic rates with the mass ...

National Academy of Sciences2014

Testate amoebae analysis in ecological and paleoecological studies of wetlands: past, present and future

Edward Mitchell

Testate amoebae are an abundant and diverse polyphyletic group of shelled protozoa living in aquatic to moist habitats ranging from estuaries to lakes, rivers, wetlands, soils, litter, and moss habitats. Owing to the preservation of shells in sediments, te ...

Springer Netherlands2008