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Life Sciences - 29.12.2020 
A single gene ’invented’ haemoglobin several times
Thanks to the marine worm Platynereis dumerilii , an animal whose genes have evolved very slowly, scientists from CNRS, Université de Paris and Sorbonne Université, in association with others at the University of Saint Petersburg and the University of Rio de Janeiro, have shown that while haemoglobin appeared independently in several species, it actually descends from a single gene transmitted to all by their last common ancestor.
Life Sciences - 29.12.2020 
A single gene ’invented’ haemoglobin several times
Thanks to the marine worm Platynereis dumerilii , an animal whose genes have evolved very slowly, scientists from CNRS, Université de Paris and Sorbonne Université, in association with others at the University of Saint Petersburg and the University of Rio de Janeiro, have shown that while haemoglobin appeared independently in several species, it actually descends from a single gene transmitted to all by their last common ancestor.
Health - Life Sciences - 16.12.2020
Health - Life Sciences - 19.11.2020 
Greater mosquito susceptibility to Zika virus fueled the epidemic
The Zika virus has spread around the world over the last decade, causing millions of infections, some of which have been associated with congenital abnormalities and neurological disorders. Scientists from the CNRS, the Institut Pasteur, and the IRD 1 turned their attention to the main vector of the virus, the mosquito Aedes aegypti .
Life Sciences - 03.08.2020 
Iron-mediated cancer cell activity: a new regulation mechanism
Researchers at the Institut Curie have recently shown that cancer cells use a membrane protein that has been known for several decades to internalise iron. Published (August 3rd, 2020), this work shows that the absorbed iron allows cancer cells to acquire metastatic properties. Biologists knew CD44 well, but didn't know the major biological function that it fulfils.
Life Sciences - 15.07.2020 
How flies flip around on take-off from an upside- down position
Flies are able to right themselves very quickly when taking off from an upside-down position. Scientists from the CNRS and from The Institute of Movement Science (ISM) at Aix-Marseille Université studying this phenomenon discovered the surprising way these insects begin by turning their bodies before their heads on take-off.
Life Sciences - 25.05.2020 
7,000 years of demographic history in France
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.
Life Sciences - Chemistry - 22.05.2020
Life Sciences - 14.05.2020 
The dreaming brain tunes out the outside world
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.
Life Sciences - 09.04.2020 
Risk aversion as a survival strategy in ants
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.
Life Sciences - 23.03.2020 
"Thermometer" protein regulates blooming
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.
Life Sciences - 05.03.2020 
Triglycerides control neurons in the reward circuit
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.
Life Sciences - 04.03.2020 
Wild boars provide archaeologists with clues to early domestication
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.
Health - Life Sciences - 03.03.2020 
Alzheimer’s: Can an amino acid help to restore memories?
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.
Life Sciences - 13.02.2020 
Oceans: particle fragmentation plays a major role in carbon sequestration
A French-British team directed by the Laboratoire d'océanographie de Villefranche-sur-Mer (CNRS/Sorbonne Université) has just discovered that a little known process regulates the capacity of oceans to sequester carbon dioxide (CO2). It should be noted that photosynthesis performed by phytoplankton on the ocean's surface transforms atmospheric CO2 into organic particles, some of which later sink to its depths.
Life Sciences - 13.02.2020 
PTSD and resilience after trauma: the role of memory suppression
The terrorist attacks committed in Paris and Saint-Denis (France) on November 13, 2015 have left lasting marks, not only on the survivors and their loved ones, but also on French society as a whole. A vast transdisciplinary research program, the " 13-Novembre " project is codirected by Francis Eustache, neuropsychologist and director of the Inserm Neuropsychology and Imaging of Human Memory laboratory (Inserm/Université de Caen Normandie/École pratique des hautes études/Caen university hospital/Cyceron imaging platform) and Denis Peschanski, historian and CNRS senior scientist.
Life Sciences - 11.02.2020 
Unusual DNA structures involved in neuron ageing
DNA can transiently adopt structures that are more complex than the double helix. Quadruple helices, or DNA quadruplexes, are an example of this. They are the preferred targets in the treatment of cancers. By studying their roles in neurons, an international collaboration involving a chemist from CNRS 1 has for the first time shown that quadruplexes are markers of neuronal ageing and exert a negative influence of autophagy 2 , a primordial process for neurons because of its protective effect against neurodegenerative diseases.
Life Sciences - 27.01.2020 
How widespread is illegal fishing’ Albatrosses are helping us with the answer
Using albatrosses fitted with loggers, researchers at the CNRS and La Rochelle Université, in association with the Administration des Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises, which manages the natural reserves of the French southern and Antarctic lands, have made a first estimation of the number of non-declared fishing boats operating without an identification system in the Southern Ocean: more than a third of the boats the birds detected in international water were non-declared.
Life Sciences - 27.01.2020 
How widespread is illegal fishing? Albatrosses are helping us with the answer
Using albatrosses fitted with loggers, researchers at the CNRS and La Rochelle Université, in association with the Administration des Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises, which manages the natural reserves of the French southern and Antarctic lands, have made a first estimation of the number of non-declared fishing boats operating without an identification system in the Southern Ocean: more than a third of the boats the birds detected in international water were non-declared.
Life Sciences - 24.01.2020 
White lupin: the genome of this legume has finally been sequenced
White lupin is a particularly abstemious crop, requiring very little fertiliser and producing high-protein seeds of great nutritive quality. The plant has just yielded the secrets of its genome thanks to the collaboration of eleven French and foreign laboratories coordinated by Benjamin Péret, a CNRS researcher at the Biochimie et physiologie moléculaire des plantes laboratory (CNRS/Inrae/Université de Montpellier/Montpellier SupAgro).
Life Sciences
Results 1 - 20 of 20.
Thanks to the marine worm Platynereis dumerilii , an animal whose genes have evolved very slowly, scientists from CNRS, Université de Paris and Sorbonne Université, in association with others at the University of Saint Petersburg and the University of Rio de Janeiro, have shown that while haemoglobin appeared independently in several species, it actually descends from a single gene transmitted to all by their last common ancestor.
Thanks to the marine worm Platynereis dumerilii , an animal whose genes have evolved very slowly, scientists from CNRS, Université de Paris and Sorbonne Université, in association with others at the University of Saint Petersburg and the University of Rio de Janeiro, have shown that while haemoglobin appeared independently in several species, it actually descends from a single gene transmitted to all by their last common ancestor.
Alzheimer’s Disease: Regulating Copper in the Brain Stops Memory Loss Among Mice
Alzheimer's disease is characterized by the presence of amyloid plaques 1 in the patient's brain. These plaques sequester copper, and contain approximately five times as much as a healthy brain. Two CNRS scientists from the Coordination Chemistry Laboratory recently developed, with their colleagues from the Guangdong University of Technology and Shenzhen University (China), a molecule that regulates the circulation of copper in the brain.
Alzheimer's disease is characterized by the presence of amyloid plaques 1 in the patient's brain. These plaques sequester copper, and contain approximately five times as much as a healthy brain. Two CNRS scientists from the Coordination Chemistry Laboratory recently developed, with their colleagues from the Guangdong University of Technology and Shenzhen University (China), a molecule that regulates the circulation of copper in the brain.
The Zika virus has spread around the world over the last decade, causing millions of infections, some of which have been associated with congenital abnormalities and neurological disorders. Scientists from the CNRS, the Institut Pasteur, and the IRD 1 turned their attention to the main vector of the virus, the mosquito Aedes aegypti .
Researchers at the Institut Curie have recently shown that cancer cells use a membrane protein that has been known for several decades to internalise iron. Published (August 3rd, 2020), this work shows that the absorbed iron allows cancer cells to acquire metastatic properties. Biologists knew CD44 well, but didn't know the major biological function that it fulfils.
Flies are able to right themselves very quickly when taking off from an upside-down position. Scientists from the CNRS and from The Institute of Movement Science (ISM) at Aix-Marseille Université studying this phenomenon discovered the surprising way these insects begin by turning their bodies before their heads on take-off.
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.
Cell reproduction dogma challenged
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A French-British team directed by the Laboratoire d'océanographie de Villefranche-sur-Mer (CNRS/Sorbonne Université) has just discovered that a little known process regulates the capacity of oceans to sequester carbon dioxide (CO2). It should be noted that photosynthesis performed by phytoplankton on the ocean's surface transforms atmospheric CO2 into organic particles, some of which later sink to its depths.
The terrorist attacks committed in Paris and Saint-Denis (France) on November 13, 2015 have left lasting marks, not only on the survivors and their loved ones, but also on French society as a whole. A vast transdisciplinary research program, the " 13-Novembre " project is codirected by Francis Eustache, neuropsychologist and director of the Inserm Neuropsychology and Imaging of Human Memory laboratory (Inserm/Université de Caen Normandie/École pratique des hautes études/Caen university hospital/Cyceron imaging platform) and Denis Peschanski, historian and CNRS senior scientist.
DNA can transiently adopt structures that are more complex than the double helix. Quadruple helices, or DNA quadruplexes, are an example of this. They are the preferred targets in the treatment of cancers. By studying their roles in neurons, an international collaboration involving a chemist from CNRS 1 has for the first time shown that quadruplexes are markers of neuronal ageing and exert a negative influence of autophagy 2 , a primordial process for neurons because of its protective effect against neurodegenerative diseases.
Using albatrosses fitted with loggers, researchers at the CNRS and La Rochelle Université, in association with the Administration des Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises, which manages the natural reserves of the French southern and Antarctic lands, have made a first estimation of the number of non-declared fishing boats operating without an identification system in the Southern Ocean: more than a third of the boats the birds detected in international water were non-declared.
Using albatrosses fitted with loggers, researchers at the CNRS and La Rochelle Université, in association with the Administration des Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises, which manages the natural reserves of the French southern and Antarctic lands, have made a first estimation of the number of non-declared fishing boats operating without an identification system in the Southern Ocean: more than a third of the boats the birds detected in international water were non-declared.
White lupin is a particularly abstemious crop, requiring very little fertiliser and producing high-protein seeds of great nutritive quality. The plant has just yielded the secrets of its genome thanks to the collaboration of eleven French and foreign laboratories coordinated by Benjamin Péret, a CNRS researcher at the Biochimie et physiologie moléculaire des plantes laboratory (CNRS/Inrae/Université de Montpellier/Montpellier SupAgro).
