The Swiss Connection

AI diagnostics are solving problems, but they're also creating new ones

AI is changing so much in the world of healthcare, including diagnosing illnesses. The technology means this can be done much faster and more accurately than ever before.

Synthetic fuel can cut emissions without new engines: what's the catch?

What if we told you there was a way to cut emissions from your car and it didn’t involve any changes to the engine? A Swiss chemical engineer is developing a synthetic, “

AI for everyone: how to open up public debate

Who does AI really serve in the end? Is it the people? The companies that profit from this technology? Or is the truth more nuanced? On this episode of the Swiss Connecti

Life without Big Tech: a Swiss experiment

Switzerland wants greater digital sovereignty. But how easy is it to break free from Google, Apple and Microsoft? Two Swissinfo journalists attempted to replace Big Tech

Are court cases a way to tackle climate change?

In this episode host Jo Fahy talks to swissinfo.ch journalist Luigi Jorio about how ordinary people have been using the legal system to hold companies to account over the

Building a Swiss FabLab: the future of Switzerland’s semiconductor strategy

In this episode of The Swiss Connection science podcast, we're digging into the push to create a Swiss FabLab, a shared chip fabrication laboratory that brings publi

How Bangladesh adapts to erosion, floods, and rising seas

Where do people go when the water takes their land? Guided by a three-year ETH Zurich study and first-hand voices, we trace a pattern that defies the headlines: most clim

How does Switzerland deal with the food waste problem?

A bin bag can tell you a lot about a country. We follow the trail of rubbish from Swiss kitchen cupboards and discover why one of Europe’s wealthiest nations still throws

A Swiss community living on 2,000 watts

What does a good life look like when you cap your energy use at 2,000 watts? We take you inside Zurich’s "Hunziker Areal", a car‑free, cooperative neighbourhood turning a

What does Antarctic ice reveal about CO2 and climate shifts?

We follow the 2,800-meter Antarctic ice core from Little Dome C to a -50°C lab in University of Bern, tracing how scientists extract ancient air to probe the Mid-Pleistoc

Invasive Quagga mussel Is Rewriting Switzerland’s Waterscape

A fingernail‑sized invader is transforming Swiss lakes and the cost of clean water. In this episode, we track the quagga mussel from its arrival in the Rhine to its rapid

Bonus Episode - The Trends Shaping the Pharmaceutical Industry in 2026

Join host, Jo Fahy, and pharmaceuticals and healthcare reporter, Jessica Davis Pluss, to weigh up the forces shaping pharma in 2026. From AI’s real gains in clinics and l

Bonus Episode - Inside Switzerland’s Quiet Rise as a Longevity Hub

How did longevity go from a social media trend to a focus of serious science? In this special bonus episode our host, Jo Fahy, is joined in the studio by pharmaceuticals

Special announcement: Season wrap for longevity, please try out Lost Cells

Lost cells on Apple, Spotify and any where you listen to your podcasts.  Send us Fan Mail SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based in Bern, Switzerland.

Rethinking Aging: Science, Society, And The Stories We Tell

Want a longer life that still feels like yours? We sit down with psychologist Christina Röcke of the University of Zurich’s Healthy Longevity Center to unpack what actual

How Michael Hall’s TOR Discovery Reframed Longevity Science

We trace how a soil-derived drug led to the discovery of mTOR, why growth control sits at the core of aging biology, and where evidence ends for humans. Michael Hall’s qu

Big Pharma steps up race for AI-discovered drugs

What if the most valuable drug candidates aren’t found but designed on demand? We follow a chemist’s journey from a pencil-and-paper notebook to generative algorithms tha

Women’s Health Meets Drug Design and Medical Research

We trace how sex and gender shape drug development, from male-heavy mouse studies to the split results in Lecanemab’s Alzheimer’s trial. Experts explain why regulators sh

Cracking the Alzheimer’s Code

Alzheimer’s disease is more than age-related memory loss—it’s a serious brain disorder. In this episode of the Swiss Connection Science podcast, Swissinfo healthcare repo

Swiss Longevity clinics: modern-day snake oil or the key to healthy ageing?

The search for the elixir of life has been going on since time immemorial – and Switzerland has played a key role. Although scientists have yet to come up with a winning