Sand patches dot beaches and deserts, but their origin remains an enigma. Using measurements taken in the desert, physicists have created a model that explains how they form, with a few surprises into the bargain.
Millions of people fear the onset of spring, because of the pollens that irritate their respiratory pathways and can trigger allergic reactions that cause sneezing, runny eyes and even asthma. The...
What is consciousness? When does it begin? How can it be measured? Does AI have it? An update on an intimate, universal yet mysterious phenomenon that the neurosciences are only just starting to...
Half a billion years ago, plants, until then exclusively aquatic, set out to colonise the land. This transition transformed the Earth and its atmosphere, paving the way for terrestrial vertebrates....
On 14 May, 2025, the Musée de la Musique in Paris unveiled a completely new presentation of the 9,000 items in its collections, highlighting the connections among the musical traditions of different...
In the contaminated area around Fukushima, Japan, scientists are studying the impact of radioactivity on the cognitive abilities of pollinating insects such as honeybees and giant hornets.
The first mapping of mitochondria in the brain has just been revealed. This is yet another step towards understanding these structures which supply their energy to brain cells and are involved in a...
At a ceremony held in Paris recenlty, the biologist Edith Heard was handed the CNRS Gold Medal, one of the most prestigious French scientific distinctions, for her outstanding research on epigenetics...
Over 5 million years ago, the Mediterranean Sea dried up, giving way to a salt flat stretching as far as the eye could see. A look back at the Mediterranean basin’s last great hydrological crisis.
A genuine technological gem, the James Webb Space Telescope has been exploring the smallest nooks of the Universe over the last two years. From the birth of planets and the first galaxies to the...
While very useful in ecosystems, mosquitoes tend to ruin the lives of humans. A CNRS team has even recently calculated how much these dipterans cost society, primarily due to the diseases they...
Alexandre Grothendieck, who is considered one of the founders of modern algebraic geometry, left a considerable mark on mathematics through his genius and his reflections on his time. Ten years after...
In the aftermath of the fire, the French Ministry of Culture and the CNRS implemented a vast scientific effort to support the restoration of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. One of the projects was...