A million years ago, long before mass tourism, the Mediterranean islands were home to dwarf elephants. Although tiny when compared to their ancestors, these animals may have inspired the Greek myth of the Cyclopes.
Article
10.05.2026
Virtual globes, 2D or 3D representations of the world produced from digital data, can fool us into thinking that we now know everything there is to know about the Earth. But a deluge of data is no guarantee of a better picture of “reality”.
Slideshow
09.25.2026
A governing equation in quantum mechanics, the Schrödinger equation is, in practice, impossible to solve exactly. The mathematicians Éric Cancès, Mathieu Lewin, and Julien Toulouse have now proposed a radical reformulation of it, in order to study complex...
Article
09.22.2026
Our topics
Article
09.17.2026
The outstanding physicist Jacqueline Bloch is a specialist in polaritons, microscopic objects halfway between matter and light. She has just been awarded the CNRS Gold Medal, France’s highest scientific distinction. A portrait.
Article
09.14.2026
The oldest private correspondence in human history is about marriages and divorces, trade and tax evasion, livestock breeding or weaving… Women’s voices stamped in clay four millennia ago offer eerily topical accounts of the affairs of the day.
Article
09.09.2026
The ability of a cell to move underpins several biological processes, including healing and cancer. Several CNRS teams are trying to unravel the molecular mechanisms in play.
Article
08.31.2026
The discovery of a previously unknown village in a region of Saudi Arabia that was thought to be only sparsely populated during Late Antiquity reveals the presence of sedentary Jewish communities just before the advent of Islam. The archaeologist Jérôme...
07.24.2026
Behind the pleasure of listening to a song lies an astonishing brain activity: an anticipatory mechanism that translates simple vibrations into emotions. A phenomenon that is especially used in...
07.23.2026
Holiday-makers cross paths at the beach, but so do multiple facets of physics and mathematics. Three research projects are working to better describe this environment so highly sensitive to climate...
Article
07.22.2026
The Chinese mathematician Hong Wang is the co-winner of the 2026 Fields Medal (the equivalent of the Nobel prize for the discipline). This distinction recognises work on solutions for the Kakeya...
07.21.2026
Ransomware is a type of malicious software (malware) that develops within an ecosystem combining criminality, cyber espionage, and disinformation. CNRS News investigates.
07.09.2026
Marthe Gautier was the scientist behind the discovery of the supernumerary chromosome of trisomy 21, a genetic anomaly that affects some 50,000 people in France. Yet her work was overshadowed and she...
Article
07.06.2026
Since 2018, the Trump administration has been waging a trade war through successive hikes in customs duties. Has this policy protected the American economy? Researchers argue that, by fuelling...
Article
06.29.2026
In April, the researchers involved in the French-Chinese SVOM space mission presented an update on its initial findings. These provided a number of interesting insights into events that took place in...
Article
06.22.2026
Why do some people keep smoking, even when a close one has fallen seriously ill because of tobacco? A recent study questions the effectiveness of prevention policies.
Article
06.17.2026
Ticks that return with the spring can infect humans with both Lyme disease – which is very severe – and other disorders. To improve their understanding of these conditions and the treatments...
Article
06.11.2026
Perusing through a million matrimonial ads from the past hundred years or so reveals changes in the criteria for love over the 20th century, and hint at deeper transformations in societies themselves.
Slideshow
06.10.2026
In 2015, archaeologists unearthed a unique artefact in Iraq: a kiln comprising two interconnected chambers dating from the Chalcolithic (7000 to 5000 BC). To find out how it worked, they decided to...
Article
06.04.2026
Researchers have revealed the existence of an infraslow physiological rhythm during sleep in reptiles. The discovery sheds light on the evolution of sleep… and its mysteries.