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Although invasive alien species are very often reduced to predators eliminating defenseless prey, in reality they do more than simply weaken certain species: they fundamentally reshape the environment itself. In order to better assess the impacts of the roughly 3,500 invasive species on the environment, an international team of scientists led by a researcher from the CNRS 1 has developed an evolution of the " Environmental Impact Classification of Alien Taxa " (EICAT) standard.

O A page from Archimedes' palimpsest, considered lost for several decades, has been identified by a CNRS researcher at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Blois. o The sheet contains a passage from the treatise "De la sphère et du cylindre" on one of its still-readable sides, the other side being obscured by an illumination added in the 20th century.

A research team led by a CNRS 1 researcher has for the first time accurately determined the age of the cave paintings at Font-de-Gaume (Les Eyzies) in Dordogne (southwestern France), according to work to be published on 9 March 2026 in PNAS. It had previously been impossible to precisely date the Palaeolithic cave art in the region, including that in Lascaux, using radiocarbon dating, as the paintings were believed to contain only iron and manganese oxides.

Documented for 200 years, the Iguanodontia group is expanding with the discovery of a brand-new species, the first known to bear spikes with properties never before observed in dinosaurs. Scientists from the CNRS 1 and their international partners have uncovered in China the fossilised skin of an exceptionally well preserved juvenile iguanodon.

At the Bromacker fossil site in Germany, an international team including a CNRS scientist 1 has identified the oldest terrestrial fossilised vomit known so far. Dated to around 290 million years ago (Early Permian), several tens of millions of years before dinosaurs appeared, this fossilised vomit, or "regurgitalite," contains numerous partially digested bone fragments, including those of two small reptiles and an amphibian 2 , preserved in a phosphate-poor matrix 3 .

An infraslow brain and body rhythm, specific to the deep sleep of mammals, has recently been identified in seven reptile and one bird species, thus demonstrating its ancestral and fundamental character.

Electric discharges have for the first time been recorded within the storms and whirlwinds of dust - known as dust devils - that sweep across the surface of Mars. Captured by the microphone of the SuperCam instrument on board NASA's Perseverance rover, the signals were analysed by a team of scientists from the CNRS, Université de Toulouse and the Observatoire de Paris - PSL, working as part of an international team.

The study of an assemblage of Neandertal human bones discovered in the Troisième caverne of Goyet (Belgium) has brought to light selective cannibalistic behaviour primarily targeting female adults and children between 41,000 and 45,000 years ago.

A cellular resistance mechanism at the origin of relapses of triple-negative breast cancer has recently been discovered by scientists from CNRS, Institut Curie and Université Paris Cité. Their findings have been published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, on 6 November 2025.

Currently incurable, peripheral neuropathies 1 are common neurological complications of chemotherapy, causing persistent pain, tingling and burning sensations in the feet and hands, sometimes even after treatment has ended. In the hope of offering a therapeutic option to affected patients, a research team led by a CNRS 2 researcher has identified a molecule capable of preventing the onset of such side effects.

In the future, could our mobile phones and internet data operate using light rather than just electricity? Now, for the first time, an international research team led by CNRS researchers 1 has discovered how to generate an electron gas, found for example in LED screens, by illuminating a material made up of layers of oxides 2 .

The oldest workshop for making shell jewellery has been unearthed at the Palaeolithic site of La Roche-à-Pierrot in Saint-Césaire, Charente-Maritime. Dating back at least 42,000 years and accompanied by red and yellow pigments, this unique assemblage in Western Europe has been linked to the Châtelperronian culture, which marks the transition between the last Neanderthals and the arrival of Homo sapiens in Europe.

Women suffering from long COVID have a greater risk 1 of experiencing abnormal uterine bleeding 2 . The symptoms of the illness intensify during the perimenstrual and proliferative phases of the menstrual cycle, notably fatigue, headaches, and muscle pain. This bidirectional relationship between long COVID and menstrual disorders has been revealed by a French-British research team co-led by a CNRS researcher 3 .

JUNO, a giant next-generation neutrino detector, has just begun collecting data.

Since the Middle Ages, the size of wild and domestic animals has largely been shaped by human selection: domestic animals are increasingly larger; wild animals increasingly smaller. During the 7,000 years preceding this period, however, wild and domestic species evolved in a synchronous and similar manner, suggesting that environmental and climatic changes played a greater role in shaping animal morphology.

Scientists knew that horses were first domesticated began during the third millennium BCE. Yet, the exact nature of the genetic modifications that transformed this animal into a vector for human mobility remained a mystery.

Llamas possess a particular type of antibody that scientists have just used to produce mini antibodies. These "nanobodies" easily pass through the biological barrier that protects brain cells 1 , making them more effective than the antibodies currently used in treatments. Biodegradable and associated with limited secondary effects, today they promise a new generation of treatments for schizophrenia.

Over the last 3,800 years, agro-pastoral activities have accelerated alpine soil erosion at a pace 4-10 times faster than their natural formation. The history of this erosion has just been revealed for the first time by a research team led by a CNRS scientist 1 . The team has shown that high-altitude soil was degraded first, under the combined effect of pastoralism and forest clearing to facilitate the movement of herds.

According to a new scientific study, conflict between males and females is very frequent among primates, representing over half of all conflicts. The winning gender in confrontations varies considerably from one species to another 1 . Strict dominance (over 90% of confrontations won) for either gender was observed in less than 20% of the populations studied.