Swiss

The microscopic world of cells is incredibly important but tricky to understand in detail. Studying living cells at the nanoscale helps us understand the causes of disease but traditional approaches are filled with risks of damaging these cells themselves. Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) have developed a new technique that allows scientists to build high-definition 3D images of cells inside and out. This, the researchers hope, will offer insights into how the cells interact within…

Swiss firm Barry Callebaut said on Thursday that production had been halted after the contamination was discovered. Barry Callebaut is the world's largest supplier of cocoa and chocolate products to the food industry. (AFP)…

Humans are the only species to live in every environmental niche in the world – from the ice sheets to the deserts, rainforests to savannahs. As individuals we are rather puny, but when we are socially connected, we are the most dominant species on the planet.  New evidence from stone tools in southern Africa shows these social connections were stronger and wider than we had thought among our ancestors who lived around 65,000 years ago, shortly before the large "out of Africa" migration in which they began to spread…

WASHINGTON—The Treasury Department is scrutinizing Switzerland’s currency practices, stepping up talks over the valuation of the Swiss franc while reporting progress in engagement with Taiwan and Vietnam over their foreign-exchange policies. In a report, mandated twice a year by Congress, the Treasury Department reviewed the foreign-exchange practices of major U.S. trade partners, with an eye toward ensuring that no nation was seeking to weaken its currency to gain an unfair trade…

Credit: Paloma de la Peña, Author provided Humans are the only species to live in every environmental niche in the world—from the icesheets to the deserts, rainforests to savannahs. As individuals we are rather puny, but when we are socially connected, we are the most dominant species on the planet. …

Quartz tools from the Sibudu Cave site in South Africa. Credit: Dr Paloma de la Peña Archaeologists have found that a tool, dubbed the "stone Swiss Army knife" of prehistory, was made to look the same in enormous numbers across great distances and multiple biomes in southern Africa. This indicates early humans were sharing information and communicating with one another.…

Glencore International A.G. and Glencore Ltd., both part of a Switzerland-based multi-national commodity trading and mining firm named in massive bribery of officials of Nigeria’s state-owned oil company, have pleaded guilty and agreed to pay over $1.1 billion fine over their involvement in a corruption scheme. The firms’ pleas are meant to resolve the United States’ government’s investigations into violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and a commodity price manipulation…

There's no shortage of crazy ideas in the custom bike world, but we haven't seen one like this before. The Biancaneve, with its seat hidden under a fold-out tailpiece, is an interesting first bike from new Italian custom shop Dotto Creations. This bike's first act started in 1979, as a Honda CX500. These middleweight shaft-drives were big sellers in their day as all-round touring bikes, and they've had a resurgence in the new millennium as a solid base for customs, with simple single-spine, dual-shock frames and an…