news 2021

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.

Publication of LGL-TPE in Science on October 7, 2021. CNRS press release on October 7, 2021. The Perseverance rover has now confirmed the suitability of its landing site: Jezero crater really did contain a lake, into which a river flowed through a delta 3.6 billion years ago. Led by a CNRS researcher, the international team involved scientists in France from Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier , and published its findings on October 7 in Science.

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.

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.

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 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.

Gravitational wave detectors have observed a new type of cataclysmic event in the cosmos: the merger of a neutron star with a black hole. The phenomenon was detected twice in January 2020. Several hypotheses could explain the existence of such mixed pairs. Further observations will be needed in order to settle the question.

Ten million years before the well-known asteroid impact that marked the end of the Mesozoic Era, dinosaurs were already in decline. That is the conclusion of the Franco-Anglo-Canadian team led by CNRS researcher Fabien Condamine from the Institute of Evolutionary Science of Montpellier (CNRS / IRD / University of Montpellier), which studied evolutionary trends during the Cretaceous for six major families of dinosaurs, including those of the tyrannosaurs, triceratops, and hadrosaurs.

The loss of a loved one can be a defining moment, even in the animal world. In chimpanzees, for example, individuals whose mothers die when they are young are smaller than their counterparts, reproduce less and are also more likely to die at a young age. But why? To find out, an international research team 1 led by a CNRS researcher 2 studied the shortand long-term effects of maternal loss on the stress levels of orphaned chimpanzees over a 19-year period.

Studying how liquid foams evolve over time is difficult, if not impossible, on Earth because of gravity. The FOAM-C experiment, which began in 2020, was designed to study liquid foams in zero gravity on board the ISS. New samples will be set up by French astronaut Thomas Pesquet on Friday, June 11. The FOAM-C experiment studies the properties of liquid foams in zero gravity.

High elevation snow is home to previously unknown species of microalgae. Scientists have created the ALPALGA consortium to study this ecosystem, which is threatened by climate change. According to their initial results, these microalgae are tiered to elevation, just like herbaceous plants and trees.

Scientists have established the most reliable estimates to date of past temperature variations in Antarctic They highlight significant differences in behaviour between West and East Antarctica. This study makes it possible to test and consolidate future climate projections. Antarctica has experienced significant temperature changes, especially since the last glacial period.

Since the 1960s, the Jebel Sahaba cemetery (Nile Valley, present-day Sudan) has become the emblem of organised warfare during prehistory. Re-analysis of the data, however, argues for a succession of smaller conflicts. Competition for resources is probably one of the causes of the conflicts witnessed in this cemetery.

Results of this research, a world-first, were published in  Nature Medicine on May 24th, 2021. An international research team has shown that optogenetic therapy has helped a patient with retinitis pigmentosa to partially regain visual function. This is a milestone step towards a type of gene therapy that could restore vision.

Plants that exist on land today have genes that allow them to exchange lipids with beneficial fungi This plant-fungus partnership is at the origin of the transition of plants from aquatic life to terrestrial life 450 million years ago, the first plants left aquatic life. Researchers from the CNRS and the Université de Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier, in collaboration with INRAE, have succeeded in demonstrating that this colonisation of land by plants was made possible by a partnership between plants and fungi.

Communication from CNRS on May 18, 2021. Publication of LGL-TPE in the June 2021 issue of Earth-Science Reviews. Fossils of land animals from South America have been found in the Antilles. The appearance/disappearance of archipelagos is due to tectonic plate movements and glacial-interglacial cycles.