The recent discovery of a binary system containing an extremely rare object, the most massive black hole (apart from SgrA*) ever detected in our Galaxy, calls into question the models for the formation of these bodies.
On our planet, everything is interconnected, from terrestrial and marine ecosystems and biodiversity to ice sheets, rivers and oceans. But a recent report reveals that the dynamics of these different systems is being destabilised by human activities to such...
Research on tinnitus, a recent investigative field, is now enabling a clearer understanding of the causes and effects of this symptom that affects nearly eight million people in France.
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...
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 “...
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
The CNRS Gold Medal will be handed to Sandra Lavorel in Paris this Wednesday. It rewards her pioneering work in functional ecology and her research on the functions of ecosystems and their benefits...
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...
“We’re a gang, but not like you think: we’re revolutionaries.” The kind of statement that sparked the curiosity of the anthropologist Martin Lamotte, who has spent four years investigating the...
An amazing invention or a public danger? In their soon-to-be fifteen years of existence, cryptoassets have shown that they are a source of opportunity as well as risk, and pose challenges for...