In cetaceans—unlike in other mammals—breathing is a voluntary action that involves returning regularly to the surface. Sperm whales take naps in vertical position, and when dolphins sleep, half of their brain stays awake. How exactly are they able to do this?
Opinion
09.20.2017
Although it was named a mere twenty years ago, the last common ancestor of all living organisms on Earth is more than three billion years old. And scientists have an ever-better idea of what it may have looked like.
Opinion
09.15.2017
In the 20 years since it left Earth for Saturn, the Cassini-Huygens mission has made remarkable discoveries, to the point of changing our entire understanding of the Solar System. Its spectacular end will come on September 15, 2017: the space probe will dive...
Article
09.12.2017
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Article
08.14.2017
A group of French mathematicians introduced an entirely new vision of their discipline. Yet despite decades of international recognition, Bourbaki remains shrouded in mystery.
07.27.2017
Flipper, a shellfish-capturing robot and the latest brainchild of the Laboratoire d’Informatique, de Robotique et de Microélectronique de Montpellier (LIRMM), has just been tested in the waters off...
07.18.2017
Fake reviews on the Web are far more widespread than we think. Andreas Munzel, a specialist in online-user review analysis, deciphers this type of fraudulent practice.
Article
07.06.2017
The 20th World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC 2017) was held in Toulouse on July 9-14. Dimitri Peaucelle, a researcher at the LAAS (Laboratory for Analysis and...
07.02.2017
A new bioinformatics software, developed by a team of researchers from France and the Netherlands, is capable of establishing a genome map of the principal variants in the same viral population. This...
06.27.2017
Can treats from the bakery be an aid to understanding physics? In any case, it is the approach taken by the Nobel Committee to shed light on the work of the three winners of the 2016 Nobel Prize in...
06.13.2017
Ants build highly-complex nests that constantly adapt to their environment. How can such complexity arise from simple individual behaviors? A team of researchers has broken their code.
Article
04.25.2017
A researcher from Toulouse has proposed a novel approach that would rank the greatest chess masters more fairly than the ELO system.
04.23.2017
Algorithms are increasingly present in our daily lives and decision-making processes. Yet in the era of big data and artificial intelligence, the lack of transparency of some automated data...
Opinion
03.21.2017
The mathematician Yves Meyer has just been awarded the Abel prize, one of the discipline's highest distinctions, for his research on the theory of wavelets. We asked Albert Cohen, mathematician...
Article
03.13.2017
Two key figures in French mathematics, Cédric Villani, Fields medalist in 2010, and Artur Ávila, the French-Brazilian winner of the prestigious prize in 2014, engage in an informal conversation with...
Article
03.06.2017
The benefits of hands-on learning are widely recognized. A new international study now delves further and detects how the sense of touch stimulates motor learning when pairs of individuals interact.