The early 20th-century artist Robert Delaunay began painting at a pivotal moment in art history, namely during the chemical industry revolution, when the number of pigments available on the market increased. Today scientists are trying to solve the mystery of the painter’s colours, his purples in particular. One of the objectives of this research is to generate knowledge essential to conserving the works.
Three years ago, in a virtually unexplored part of northern Saudi Arabia, exceptional animal sculptures depicting life-sized camelids and equids were discovered. Were they carved by the Nabateans...
Invisible, and yet everywhere. Mercury is present in the atmosphere, oceans, and even in our plates! Since the adoption of the Minamata Convention on Mercury in 2013, 128 countries have been striving...
What impact does climate change have on Himalayan glaciers? Over the last ten years, an international team of scientists has studied the gradual evolution of glaciers in Nepal, a phenomenon that...
Discover the 20 photos that won the La preuve par l’image (The Proof is in the picture) competition. The competition, which was organised this year by the CNRS and the francophone association for...
Wood is a living material. And this shows in paintings on wood, slowly cracking, bending and warping—the price to pay for being on public display under conditions that are often far from ideal. In...
From the jungles of the Amazon to the peaks of the Himalayas, the depths of oceans to those of underground wells, scientists are sometimes severely put to the test in collecting data, setting up...