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Researchers from the Universities of Innsbruck and Waterloo have studied the environmental impact of artificial snowmaking and its effect on the sustainability of ski tourism with Canada as an example. High water and energy consumption and the associated CO2 emissions are a burden on the environmental balance sheet; energy from renewable sources can make winter sports considerably more sustainable.

An international team from science and industry has revolutionized the modelling and prediction of free energy in crystals. Their work on the new TRHu(ST) method, published in Nature , shows that the stability of crystal forms can be predicted reliably and cost-effectively under real temperature and humidity conditions.

In a groundbreaking collaboration, two world-leading research groups, one led by Francesca Ferlaino and one by Markus Greiner, have joined force to develop an advanced quantum gas microscope for magnetic quantum matter. This state-of-the-art instrument reveals intricate dipolar quantum phases shaped by the interactions as reported in Nature .

Would you rather lay lots of eggs - or grow your own head back? In the evolutionary history of flatworms, some species apparently had to choose one of the two abilities. This is what a team of scientists found out when they investigated the regenerative ability of planarians. Bernhard Egger, who heads the Regeneration Group at the Institute of Zoology at the University of Innsbruck and was involved in the study, reports on the amazing properties of these animals .

In order to obtain information about dark matter and dark energy from the huge amounts of data to be generated by the new ESA probe Euclid, Innsbruck astrophysicist Laila Linke and her team are using novel statistical methods. As soon as Euclid sends its first data to Earth, the researchers intend to have a tool ready to gain new Astronomical measurements revealed that an unknown world lies hidden among all the pretty stars, nebulae and galaxies.

In the summer of 2022, one of Tyrol's largest glaciers recorded its largest mass loss ever. The Hintereisferner in the Ötztal valley reached its Glacier Loss Day (GLD) earlier than ever before. GLD serves as an indicator of a glacier's health over the course of the year, similar to how Earth Overshoot Day measures the Earth's resource consumption.

As part of an international deep-sea expedition, a team of researchers under the co-leadership of Innsbruck geologist Michael Strasser took the deepest samples ever obtained from the seafloor at a depth of more than 8000 meters in the Japan Trench in 2021. Large amounts of dissolved carbon and enormous methane reservoirs were discovered in the seafloor, the formation of which is favored by the strong earthquake activity there.

Innsbruck researchers are making a major contribution to a new international concept for aging research. A new framework for so-called biomarkers makes it easier to define the biological process of aging. In this way, the researchers are also opening up new avenues for the prevention of age-related diseases.

Researchers from Austria and USA have designed a new type of quantum computer that uses fermionic atoms to simulate complex physical systems. The processor uses programmable neutral atom arrays and is capable of simulating fermionic models in a hardware-efficient manner using fermionic gates. The team led by Peter Zoller demonstrated how the new quantum processor can efficiently simulate fermionic models from quantum chemistry and particle physics.

How active compounds affect RNA and thus the expression of genes is of great interest for the development of potential therapeutics. Innsbruck chemists have now used a method they recently developed to study the binding of the aminoglycoside Neomycin B to a so-called mRNA riboswitch. In important cellular processes, ribonucleic acids (RNA) specifically recognize certain proteins or small organic molecules as binding partners.

During heat waves, people at risk can protect themselves by moving to medium altitudes. Between 1000 and 2500 m'there is a lower mortality rate in the Alps, which is probably also due to the lower temperatures. This is pointed out by sports scientist Martin Burtscher from the University of Innsbruck.

Soil is the largest natural carbon storage in the world. In Northern ecosystems particularly large amounts of carbon are stored, but they are also particularly strongly affected by global warming. A recently published study by an international team led by Michael Bahn of the University of Innsbruck investigated how ongoing warming affects the uptake and release of carbon dioxide in subarctic grassland.

Soils are the largest natural carbon reservoirs in the world. In the far north, this store is particularly large, but it is also particularly affected by global warming there. A recent study by an international team led by Michael Bahn of the University of Innsbruck investigated how ongoing warming affects the uptake and release of carbon dioxide in subarctic grasslands.

Japanese IT company NEC has built the first quantum processor based on the ParityQC architecture. The Parity technology was invented at the University of Innsbruck and is being further developed and marketed by the spin-off ParityQC. NEC is now making the quantum computer, which specializes in optimization problems, available to the scientific community via the cloud.

The research group led by chemist Thomas Magauer has accomplsihed a divergent strategy to synthesize nine complex natural compounds. The developed method requires significantly less time and results in a variety of compounds with different structures and biological properties. Chemical synthesis enables the construction of complex molecules and active drug substances.

Researchers at the University of Innsbruck are working intensively on preparations for the Euclid mission of the European Space Agency ESA. The space telescope will be launched on July 1 and is expected to produce the largest 3D map of the universe to date. Scientists hope to learn more about the hitherto unexplored dark matter and dark energy of the universe.

In the high altitudes of the European Eastern Alps, the number of detected lightning strikes has doubled in the course of the last 40 years. The reasons for this lie in the consequences of the climate crisis. This has now been shown for the first time by a team of Innsbruck researchers from the Institutes of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and Statistics in the scientific journal Climate Dynamics .

How does competition influence moral behavior? Studies have so far found evidence for both a negative and a positive influence of competition on moral behavior. Researchers from Innsbruck, Vienna, Stockholm, and Amsterdam are using this unanswered question to conduct a meta-study that examines the extent to which different study designs can account for variability in scientific outcomes.

How does competition influence moral behaviour? Studies have so far found evidence for both a negative and a positive influence of competition on moral behaviour. Researchers from Innsbruck, Vienna, Stockholm and Amsterdam are using this unanswered question in a meta-study to investigate the extent to which different study designs can be responsible for variability in scientific results.

Quantum physicists at the University of Innsbruck, together with colleagues at the ETH Lausanne, have found a new way to generate a crystalline structure that emerges as a "coherent matter density wave" in an atomic gas. The findings help to better understand the fascinating behavior of quantum matter near absolute zero.