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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
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
09.14.2026
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...
Article
08.31.2026
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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...
05.28.2026
Sophie Germain’s name will soon be engraved on the Eiffel Tower. A brilliant self-taught mathematician, she had to fight throughout her life to gain equal recognition to her male contemporaries, and...
04.28.2026
Maïmouna Bocoum, a physicist specialising in acousto-optics at the Paris-based Langevin Institute, develops imaging technologies for the early detection of breast tumours. She was awarded this year’s...
04.20.2026
The international crisis over Greenland has highlighted the wealth of the Far North's underground resources, but at the same time obscured the role of its inhabitants in their extraction. All...
04.15.2026
At a time when the game “GTA VI”, whose launch has been postponed to November 2026, is drawing ever-greater attention in the media, a social psychology researcher investigates the impact on player...
Article
01.23.2026
In the Middle Ages, sugar was praised for its therapeutic benefits, whereas melon was long considered harmful! The mediaevalist and food specialist Bruno Laurioux recounts the history of the eternal...
12.02.2025
Imagining and preparing for the future in order to guide research and public policy is the very purpose of foresight. A perilous exercise, scientists point out. And one that requires dialogue between...
11.09.2025
In 2015, the historic Paris Agreement, signed by 195 countries, sought to limit global warming to 2 °C. Ten years later, the results have yet to materialise, raising questions regarding the...