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Skin fibrosis impairs skin tissue function, and has a strong aesthetic impact. French researchers have now shown that applying an electric field to the skin could cure skin fibrosis by reducing overly high collagen levels. Collagen, the main component of the skin's extracellular matrix, can cause a pathological condition if it is in excess.

The modern horse was domesticated around 2200 years BCE in the northern Caucasus. In the centuries that followed it spread throughout Asia and Europe. To achieve this result, an international team of 162 scientists collected, sequenced and compared 273 genomes from ancient horses scattered across Eurasia.

Drug addiction is a psychiatric disorder for which no pharmacological treatment with long-term efficacy currently exists. All addictive substances share the property of raising concentrations of the neurotransmitter dopamine within brain regions forming the neural reward circuit. This increase in dopamine levels results in long-lasting alteration of signal transmission that is dependent on another neurotransmitter, glutamate, which causes addictive behaviours.

Whether Venus, one of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets, ever had oceans remains an unsolved puzzle. Although an American study hypothesized involving in particular scientists from the CNRS and University of Versailles-Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines 1 (UVSQ). Using a state-of-the-art climate model, the research team has come up with an alternative scenario to the American study.

Images from Perseverance's French-American instrument SuperCam show that the crater where the rover landed once contained a lake. The SuperCam observations also identified strata containing boulders, related to a major change in the hydrological regime. This study, led by a French researcher, will facilitate selection of the most suitable areas for Perseverance to collect samples.

There was a surprise in store for NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft as it prepared to land on asteroid Bennu in October 2020 in order to collect samples. Contrary to what astronomers believed, the asteroid's surface was not covered with a layer of fine dust, called regolith. This dust, which blankets the Moon and some asteroids, is formed when thermal shock and meteorite impacts break up surface rocks.

To cool off in summer, there's nothing better than a walk in the woods. Trees act as a buffer that cools the air beneath their foliage in summer and warms it in winter. This phenomenon is caused not only by the protection that the forest canopy provides, but also by the transpiration of trees in summer: trees absorb cooler water from the soil, and this water is then transported up to the leaves, ending up in the atmosphere and thus cooling the surrounding air.

Like a work of art enshrined in a museum, some stones end up on a pedestal of ice in nature, with no human intervention. This "Zen stone" phenomenon, named after the stacked stones in Japanese gardens, appears on the surface of frozen lakes, Lake Baikal (Russia) in particular. These structures result from the phenomenon of sublimation, which causes a body, in this case ice, to change from solid to gaseous form without the intermediary form of a liquid.

One of Earth's unique features is that it has continents. Contrary to many theories, the continents have always been rich in silica (which is found in quartz for example). The continents did not form continuously over time but result from episodic events throughout Earth's history. The continents, a specific feature of our planet, still hold many secrets.

Cell nuclei protect the DNA. Nuclei can rupture when cells are deformed, causing DNA damage. In the case of breast cancer, this damage makes tumour cells more invasive, with increased risk of metastasis. When cells multiply and migrate, they can be compressed and their nucleus may break open. This phenomenon causes DNA damage.

Galaxies exchange matter with their external environment thanks to galactic winds. The MUSE instrument from the Very Large Telescope has, for the very first time, mapped the galactic wind that drive these exchanges between galaxies and nebulae. This observation led to the detection of some of the Universe's missing matter.

Every winter, thousands of emaciated seabird carcasses are found on North American and European shores. In an article published on the 13 September in Current Biology , an international team of scientists including the CNRS 1 has shown how cyclones are causing the deaths of these birds. The latter are frequently exposed to high-intensity cyclones, which can last several days, when they migrate from their Arctic nesting sites to the North Atlantic further south in order to winter in more favourable conditions.

How can we best organise on-site workplace and school attendance periods and remote work to slow the circulation of Sars-CoV-2? Is it better to separate classes? Bring your whole team in at the same time? Set this up on daily or weekly schedules? The COVID-19 pandemic has forced most countries to impose contact limitations in workplaces, universities and schools.

Artificial intelligence surpasses the human brain only at the cost of consuming tens of thousands of times more energy. A major difference between the brain and electronic systems is that neurons use ions, not electrons, to carry information. French scientists have designed theoretical artificial neurons with ions to carry the information.

Biological invasions are one of the most important factors of biodiversity loss. They threaten the diversity of ecological strategies - the ways in which species feed, live, function and defend themselves - by up to 40% in birds and 11% in mammals. 11% of the evolutionary diversity of birds and mammals, i.e. their accumulated evolutionary history, is also threatened by biological invasions.

Quantum information could be behind the next technological revolution. By analogy with the bit in classical computing, the qubit is the basic element of quantum computing. However, demonstrating the existence of this information storage unit and using it remains complex, and hence limited.

The origin and date of appearance of prehistoric cave art are the subjects of ongoing debate. Spain's Cueva de Ardales is one point of discussion. There a flowstone formation is stained red in places. This colouring is apparently almost 65,000 years old 1 but until now, a part of the scientific community attributed it to a natural coating of iron oxide deposited by flowing water.

The blood groups of three Neandertal females and one Denisovan female have been determined by a Marseille-based team including a palaeoanthropologist, population geneticists, and haematologists. Their research provides new data for understanding the origins, history, and health of these extinct hominin lineages.

Using information obtained from around a dozen earthquakes detected on Mars by the Very Broad Band SEIS seismometer, developed in France, the international team of NASA's InSight mission has unveiled the internal structure of Mars.

While temporary sterility after childbirth lasts on average only a few weeks for a woman who does not breastfeed, it can last for months, or even more than a year, for one who does. But it was unclear how this contraceptive effect of breastfeeding is affected by a mother's 'energetic status' - that includes her nutrition and levels of physical activity.