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Researchers from the CNRS have discovered that mandrills use their sense of smell to avoid contamination by intestinal protozoans through contact with infected members of their group. Their work, published in Science Advances on 7 april 2017, shows that parasites shape the social behavior of these primates, leading them to develop a strategy of parasite avoidance through smell.

Researchers from the CNRS, Thales, and the Universities of Bordeaux, Paris-Sud, and Evry have created an artificial synapse capable of learning autonomously. They were also able to model the device, which is essential for developing more complex circuits. The research was published on 3 April 2017. One of the goals of biomimetics is to take inspiration from the functioning of the brain in order to design increasingly intelligent machines.

The ability to detect X-rays on a tiny scale paves the way for high-precision medical imaging and therapies. Such detection capabilities have been achieved by researchers from the CNRS, the University of Franche-Comté (UFC), and Aix-Marseille University (AMU), who attached an X-ray sensor to the end of an optical fiber.

Gender discrimination can be found in the most unexpected fields. An international team, involving Demian Battaglia, a CNRS researcher at the Institut de neurosciences des systèmes, as well as researchers from Yale and the Max Planck Institute (Germany), has just demonstrated that women are underrepresented in the peer review of scientific publications.

Rewarded with a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2016, nanomachines provide mechanical work on the smallest of scales.

French researchers have identified a marker that makes it possible to differentiate “dormant” HIV-infected cells from healthy cells. This discovery will make it possible to isolate and analyze reservoir cells which, by silently hosting the virus, are responsible for its persistence even among patients receiving antiviral treatment, whose viral load is undetectable.

The mystery that is the origin of flowering plants has been partially solved thanks to a team from the Laboratoire de Physiologie Cellulaire et Végétale (CNRS/Inra/CEA/Université Grenoble Alpes), in

Seven temperate Earth-sized planets revolve around the star TRAPPIST-1. In addition, at least three of them harbor conditions compatible with the presence of liquid water on their surfaces.

Surprising images from the Rosetta spacecraft show the presence of dune-like patterns on the surface of comet Chury. Researchers at the Laboratoire de Physique et Mécanique des Milieux Hétérogènes (CNRS/ESPCI Paris/UPMC/Université Paris Diderot) studied the available images and modeled the outgassing of vapor to try to explain the phenomenon.

The possibility of major climate change in the Atlantic region has long been recognized and has even been the subject of a Hollywood movie: The Day After Tomorrow .

An international team including researchers at the university of Edinburgh and Antoine Wystrach of the Research Centre on Animal Cognition (CNRS/Université Toulouse III—Paul Sabatier) has shown that ants can get their bearings whatever the orientation of their body. Their brains may be smaller than the head of a pin, but ants are excellent navigators that use celestial and terrestrial cues to memorize their paths.

Diffraction-based analytical methods are widely used in laboratories, but they struggle to study samples that are smaller than a micrometer in size. Researchers from the Laboratoire de cristallographie et sciences des matériaux (CNRS/Ensicaen/Unicaen), the Laboratoire catalyse et spectrochimie (CNRS/Ensicaen/Unicaen) 1 , and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic have nevertheless been successful in using electron diffraction to reveal the structure of nanocrystals 2 .

Baboons produce vocalizations comparable to vowels. This is what has been demonstrated by an international team coordinated by researchers from the Gipsa-Lab (CNRS/Grenoble INP/Grenoble Alpes University), the Laboratory of Cognitive Psychology (CNRS/AMU), and the Laboratory of Anatomy at the University of Montpellier, using acoustic analyses of vocalizations coupled with an anatomical study of the tongue muscles and the modeling of the acoustic potential of the vocal tract in monkeys.

To paint quickly while creating exceptional texture and volume effects, J. M. W. Turner and other English artists of his generation relied on the development of innovative gels. All the rage in the 19th century—and still in use today—these compounds alter the properties of the oil paints they are combined with.

The mechanical resistance of tumors and collateral damage of standard treatments often hinder efforts to defeat cancers.

Cells are the site of a multitude of chemical reactions, the precision of which is envied by scientists.

Hybrid organic-inorganic materials, which were developed approximately twenty years ago – notably by Gérard Férey, laureate of the CNRS 2010 Gold Medal, and his team – are known firstly for their extreme porosity. This remarkable property offers a diverse range of applications in the fields of energy, health, and sustainable development.

Pain serves as a valuable warning signal, but when it becomes chronic, pain should be considered as a real disease.

It isn't an animal, a plant, or a fungus. The slime mold ( Physarum polycephalum ) is a strange, creeping, bloblike organism made up of one giant cell. Though it has no brain, it can learn from experience, as biologists at the Research Centre on Animal Cognition (CNRS, Université Toulouse III—Paul Sabatier) previously demonstrated.

Stretching time scales to explore extreme events in nature seemed impossible, yet this feat is now conceivable thanks to a team from the Institut FEMTO-ST (CNRS/UFC/UTBM/ENSMM), which used an innovative measurement technique enabling the capture of such events in real time. This technique, which is currently applied in the field of photonics, could help predict rogue wave events 1 on the ocean surface, along with other extreme natural phenomena.