News in Brief
Physics - May 26
Alice&Bob raises ¤3M and enters the race to produce the world’s first fault-tolerant quantum computer
Alice&Bob raises ¤3M and enters the race to produce the world’s first fault-tolerant quantum computer
Environment - May 25
Marine species are outpacing terrestrial species in the race against global warming
Marine species are outpacing terrestrial species in the race against global warming
news
Life Sciences - May 25
Life Sciences - May 22
Meiosis is essential to sexual reproduction. For almost 15 years, it has been commonly held that retinoic acid, a molecule derived from vitamin A, triggers meiosis in mammalian germ cells.
Life Sciences - May 14
Scientists from the CNRS and the ENS-PSL in France 1 and Monash University in Australia have shown that the brain suppresses information from the outside world, such as the sound of a conversation, during the sleep phase linked to dreaming.
Earth Sciences - May 18
The surface of the planet Mars bears probable traces of -sedimentary volcanism-, a geological phenomenon that leads to the eruption of mud from underground.
Environment - May 11
In the past few weeks, oil prices have fallen to record lows. This development was not predicted by the Hotelling rule, an equation proposed in 1931 that remains central to the economics of natural resources today.
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A team led by scientists from the Institut Jacques Monod (CNRS/Université de Paris) 1 have shown that French prehistory was punctuated by two waves of migration: the first during the Neolithic period, about 6,300 years ago, the second during the Bronze Age, about 4,200 years ago.
Meiosis is essential to sexual reproduction. For almost 15 years, it has been commonly held that retinoic acid, a molecule derived from vitamin A, triggers meiosis in mammalian germ cells. Yet, in joint articles published in Science Advances ( 22 May 2020 ), researchers from the Institut de Biologie Valrose (CNRS / INSERM / Université Côte d'Azur) and the IGBMC (CNRS / INSERM / University of Strasbourg), with their colleagues, demonstrate that meiosis in mice begins and proceeds normally even in the absence of retinoic acid.
The surface of the planet Mars bears probable traces of -sedimentary volcanism-, a geological phenomenon that leads to the eruption of mud from underground. But how does a mixture of sediment and water behave in the open air on the Red Planet? Conditions there are extremely different from those on Earth - atmospheric pressure is 150 times lower and temperatures are generally negative.
Scientists from the CNRS and the ENS-PSL in France 1 and Monash University in Australia have shown that the brain suppresses information from the outside world, such as the sound of a conversation, during the sleep phase linked to dreaming. This ability be one of the protective mechanisms of dreams.
A century of misunderstanding of a key tool in the economics of natural resources
In the past few weeks, oil prices have fallen to record lows. This development was not predicted by the Hotelling rule, an equation proposed in 1931 that remains central to the economics of natural resources today. In an article published on 11 May 2020 in the Canadian Journal of Economics , economists Roberto Ferreira da Cunha, of the Berkeley Research Group, and Antoine Missemer, of the CNRS, present the results of a groundbreaking historical survey of documents from Harold Hotelling's archives.
In the past few weeks, oil prices have fallen to record lows. This development was not predicted by the Hotelling rule, an equation proposed in 1931 that remains central to the economics of natural resources today. In an article published on 11 May 2020 in the Canadian Journal of Economics , economists Roberto Ferreira da Cunha, of the Berkeley Research Group, and Antoine Missemer, of the CNRS, present the results of a groundbreaking historical survey of documents from Harold Hotelling's archives.
The Mechanical Ventilator Milano (MVM), an open source ventilator to support patients severely ill with COVID-19, has moved from design to reality in six weeks, propelled by physicists specialised in dark matter who turned their attention away from unknown particles for this period. It has just been authorised by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as within the scope of the emergency use authorization for ventilators in intensive care.
While tracing the movement of Escherichia coli, a team of French researchers noticed that near solid surfaces, the bacteria run in circles. Loop after loop, the tracing almost looks like an Olympic figure skating rink before the Zamboni irons the sheet of ice smooth. Breaking down E. coli's routine step by step, the scientists identified a signature move-surface tumbling.
Six new research projects concerning Covid-19
On April 10, 2020, ANR announced the funding of 86 projects concerning Covid-19. Six are associated with ENS de Lyon laboratories. The SARS-CoV-2 infection is a global emergency for human health. The interferon response is the body's first barrier to defending viral infections. This host response is initiated by the recognition of viral elements by receptor and leads to the production of molecules, including interferon, that alert surrounding cells.
On April 10, 2020, ANR announced the funding of 86 projects concerning Covid-19. Six are associated with ENS de Lyon laboratories. The SARS-CoV-2 infection is a global emergency for human health. The interferon response is the body's first barrier to defending viral infections. This host response is initiated by the recognition of viral elements by receptor and leads to the production of molecules, including interferon, that alert surrounding cells.
Ka`epaoka`awela asteroid 1 surprised the world in 2018: it was the first object in the solar system that was demonstrated to be of extrasolar origin. But now those who discovered it have announced that it is not alone. Published in MNRAS on 23 April 2020, work by Fathi Namouni, a CNRS researcher in the Laboratoire Lagrange (CNRS/Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur/Université Côte d'Azur), and Helena Morais, researcher at UNESP in Brazil, proves that at least 19 other asteroids orbited another star before joining our system.
Earth's atmosphere is made up of 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen, a mixture that is unique in the Solar System 1 . The oxygen was produced by some of the first living organisms. But where did the nitrogen come from? Did it escape from Earth's mantle through volcanic activity? To try to answer these questions, Jabrane Labidi, a CNRS researcher at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (CNRS/IPGP/IGN) 2 and his colleagues collected samples of gas from several volcanic sites on our planet.
We live in a world of matter - because matter overtook antimatter , though they were both created in equal amounts by the Big Bang when our universe began. As featured on the cover of Nature on 16 April 2020, neutrinos and the associated antimatter particles, antineutrinos, are reported to have a high likelihood of differing behaviour that offers a promising path to explaining the asymmetry between matter and antimatter.
Ants are excellent navigators and always find their way back to the nest. But how do they react when an obstacle or a predator blocks their path? An international team including Antoine Wystrach, a CNRS researcher at the Research Centre on Animal Cognition (CNRS/Université Tou-louse III - Paul Sabatier), has shown that ants are capable of changing their familiar route to avoid traps thanks to an aversive learning mechanism: by associating visual cues with negative experiences, they can memorise potentially dangerous routes.
Contrary to popular belief, Neanderthals were no less technologically advanced than Homo sapiens . An international team, including researchers from the CNRS, have discovered the first evidence of cord making, dating back more than 40,000 years 1 , on aflint fragment from the prehistoric site of Abri du Maras in the south of France 2 .
The Arctic Ocean increasingly resembles the Atlantic, not only regarding its temperature but also the species that live there. However, scientists from the CNRS and Université Laval, Quebec 1 showed that an unprecedented strengthening of Atlantic currents is playing a major role in this phenomenon called 'Atlantification'.
A palette of colours on a silver plate: that is what the world's first colour photograph looks like. It was taken by French physicist Edmond Becquerel in 1848. His process was empirical, never explained, and quickly abandoned. A team at the Centre de Recherche sur la Conservation (CNRS/Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle/Ministère de la Culture) has now shone a light on this, in collaboration with the SOLEIL synchrotron and the Laboratoire de Physique des Solides (CNRS/Université Paris-Saclay) .
Usain Bolt's 200m record has not been beaten for ten years and Florence Griffith Joyner's for more than thirty years. And what about if the secret behind beating records was to use mathematics' Thanks to a mathematical model, Amandine Aftalion, CNRS researcher at the Centre d'analyse et de mathématique sociales (CNRS/EHESS), and Emmanuel Trélat, a Sorbonne Université researcher at the Laboratoire Jacques-Louis Lions (CNRS/Sorbonne Université/ Université de Paris) have proved that the geometry of athletic tracks could be optimised to improve records.
As average temperatures rise every year, it is no longer rare to see plants flower as early as February. Behind this phenomenon is a complex of proteins whose activity is controlled by temperature changes, as has just been demonstrated by researchers from the Cell and Plant Physiology Laboratory (CNRS / CEA / INRAE / Université Grenoble Alpes) and their partners.
Energy-dense food, obesity and compulsive food intake bordering addiction: the scientific literature has been pointing to connections between these for years. Scientists at the CNRS and Université de Paris have just shown for the first time how fatty nutrients act on the brain in the reward circuit. Published in Cell Metabolism on 5 March 2020, these results shed new light on the connection between food and eating disorders.
Until now, archaeozoologists have been unable to reconstruct the earliest stages of domestication: the process of placing wild animals in captivity remained beyond their methodological reach 1 . Using the wild boar as an experimental model, a multidisciplinary team made up of scientists from the CNRS and the French National Museum of Natural History 2 have shown that a life spent in captivity has an identifiable effect on the shape of the calcaneus, a tarsal bone that plays a propulsive role in locomotion.
Scientists at the Laboratoire des Maladies Neurodégénératives (CNRS/CEA/Université Paris-Saclay) and the Neurocentre Magendie (INSERM/Université de Bordeaux) have just shown that a metabolic pathway plays a determining role in Alzheimer's disease's memory problems. This work, published on 3 March 2020 in Cell Metabolism, also shows that supplying a specific amino acid as a nutritional supplement in a mouse model of Alzheimer's restores spatial memory affected early.
News from the Lab is a selection of science news that are significant or interesting for a broad readership.
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News in Brief
Physics - May 26
Alice&Bob raises ¤3M and enters the race to produce the world’s first fault-tolerant quantum computer
Alice&Bob raises ¤3M and enters the race to produce the world’s first fault-tolerant quantum computer
Environment - May 25
Marine species are outpacing terrestrial species in the race against global warming
Marine species are outpacing terrestrial species in the race against global warming