CNRS News

How can one study a criminal organisation that, as one of its most basic principles, denies its own existence? To this end, the political anthropologist Deborah Puccio-Den has developed a new paradigm: the anthropology of silence.

Superconductivity is the property of certain materials that can conduct electric currents with no resistance. This quantum phenomenon is still shrouded in mystery, and until now has been limited to very low temperatures. Yet all this could soon change.

The third most common reason for consulting a doctor, vertigo and its causes are increasingly well understood. Numerous options are being explored to relieve patients.

After decades of repressive legislation, the way in which societies regulate the use of psychoactive substances is evolving but remains decidedly ambiguous.

Essential links in the global economic system, the number and size of warehouses has increased sharply across the planet. The sociologist Delphine Mercier explains why she is interested in this “warehouse economy”.

Glycobiology, or study of the biological functions of saccharides, is a fully fledged research field that could one day lead to novel treatments for infections.

European hamsters, declared critically endangered since 2020, have seen three quarters of their global population disappear in the past 50 years. Intensive cereal monoculture has been identified as one of the reasons for this decline. In the northeastern French region of Alsace, the only one where these hamsters are found, researchers, voluntary organisations and farmers are taking action to protect them. Among those taking part are scientists at the Hubert-Curien Multidisciplinary Institute* in Strasbourg. A report from CNRS News.

Behind its easy-going, accessible appearance, Silicon Valley is a black box that is difficult to grasp. The sociologist Olivier Alexandre provides some keys for doing so, after spending several years there.

The Natufian culture developed between 13,000 and 9,650 years ago in northern Israel, on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. Recent discoveries suggest that these hunter-gatherers used red pigments of organic origin for the first time.

How do planets form? How did life emerge from lifeless matter? Does it exist elsewhere? These are just some of the questions that the multidisciplinary Origins programme will attempt to answer.

Launched on 26 September, the ATLASea research programme will investigate marine biodiversity in mainland France and its overseas territories over a period of eight years. The aim is to collect as many organisms as possible in order to set up the world’s only marine genome bank.

As this month saw the celebration of World Animal Day, more and more studies demonstrate the existence of animal cultures and social transmission within a given species. Discover another instalment from our series devoted to animal intelligence.

How do our ideas, perceptions and emotions take form to produce a thought? To answer this question, researchers and philosophers are investigating the hypothesis of a specific language of thought. The psycholinguist Isabelle Dautriche offers a few explanations.

How does a baby’s mind work? They may be small, but from their very first moments, human beings are always absorbing information. And while they may not learn to stand up until they’re roughly a year old, they start to learn language much sooner. But how does a baby learn a language? And what are the factors that affect their learning? A team of psycholinguists at Babylab is exploring this fascinating process.
 

As the volume of digital data increases at dizzying speed, the Genesis project is exploring new avenues for reducing its energy impact.

Following the disappointing results from other candidates for explaining dark matter, a particle hypothesised over 40 years ago, the axion, has come back to the forefront.

The CNRS Gold Medal has been awarded to Sandra Lavorel for her pioneering work in functional ecology. Her research focuses on the functions of ecosystems and their benefits for human societies. She carries it out in the Alps, where she models the effects of global warming on alpine meadows.

It was thought for a long time that the visually-impaired had no mental representation of space. Luckily, this is wrong. Yet this capacity must be developed from the youngest age. In Toulouse (southwestern France), researchers are working in collaboration with the INJA national institute for blind young people within the joint laborat …

A team of researchers focused on the benefits of drafting for a marathon runner preceded by a “pacer”.

Patricia Rousselle, Marc Antonini, Jacques Gierak, and Claire Hellio are this year’s recipients of the CNRS Innovation Medal. On 14 November, they will be presented with this distinction, which rewards scientists whose research work has enabled outstanding technological, therapeutic, or social innovation.