news 2022

Scientists at Trinity College Dublin and the Institute Imagine at Necker Hospital, Paris, announced a significant advance in our understanding of a very rare condition called alternating hemiplegia of childhood (AHC). This is a devastating condition that can lead to repeated paralysis that affects one side of the body or the other or sometimes both at once.

Publication of the IGFL in the journal PNAS . CNRS-INSB communication on July 12, 2022. Some organisms have the fascinating capacity to regenerate lost body parts. To which extent regeneration entails the redeployment of an embryonic developmental program is a long-standing question of regenerative studies, with implications for development, evolution, and regenerative medicine.

GRENOBLE, France - July 7, 2022 - Inspired by the barn owl's neuroanatomy, CEA-Leti has developed an event-driven, object-localization system that couples state-of-the-art piezoelectric, ultrasound transducer sensors to a neuromorphic, resistive memories-based computational map. Presented in a paper published recently in Nature Communications , the research team describes development of an auditory-processing system that increases energy efficiency by up to five orders of magnitude compared to conventional localization systems.

How can we increase the efficacy of vaccines used to protect against viral respiratory diseases such as influenza and COVID-19? Scientists from Inserm, CNRS and Aix-Marseille Université at the Center of Immunology Marseille-Luminy are opening up new prospects in the field, with the triggering of memory B cells directly in the lungs looking to be a promising avenue.

Australopithecus africanus individuals lived at least one million years earlier than previous dating indicated. This is the result from dating a cave deposit from the Sterkfontein site (South Africa), one of the richest in australopithecine remains, where the fossil of Mrs Ples, one of the first complete skulls of this kind of hominin, was discovered in 1947.

Some endocrine disruptors have already been associated with an impaired quality of tooth enamel. After demonstrating the harmful effects of bisphenol A on tooth development, a team of researchers from Inserm, Université Paris Cité and Sorbonne Université, at the Cordeliers Research Center in Paris, in collaboration with CNRS went on to look at the effects of DEHP, an endocrine disruptor in the phthalate family, on dental development.

Global climate change is particularly noticeable in the Arctic since it is warming twice as fast as temperate regions.

Hearing loss is a public health problem affecting billions of people in all countries. However, prevalence data (i.e., schematically, their frequency in the population), as well as data describing the use of hearing aids, remain imprecise. A new study conducted by a research team from Inserm and Université Paris Cité at PARCC (Paris Cardiovascular Research Center, unit Inserm Unit 970) , in collaboration with the AP-HP and the Foch Hospital in Suresnes, shows for the first time that 25% of adults in France are affected by some form of hearing impairment.

The cerebellum is essential for sensorimotor control but also contributes to higher cognitive functions including social behaviors. In a recent study, an international research consortium including scientists from Inserm - University of Montpellier (France), the Institut de Neurociències Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (INc-UAB) (Spain), and the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) uncovered how dopamine in the cerebellum modulates social behaviors via its action on D2 receptors (D2R).

The 2022 Paname initiative 1 aims to better understand the causes and effects of climate change in urban environments through intensive measurement campaigns planned for the Paris region this summer. From the studies, information will be derived that is key to making cities more resilient to future climate realities.

Publication of the RDP in the journal PNAS on May 24, 2022. CNRS-INSB communication on May 30, 2022. Pollen viability depends on a tough external barrier called the pollen wall. Pollen wall components are produced by tapetum cells, which surround developing pollen grains within the anther. Precise coordination of tapetum activity with pollen grain development is required to ensure effective pollen wall formation.

In Colmar, the Inrap is excavating the cathedral square and uncovering the old cemetery of the Saint-Martin collegiate church. The initial research provided first-rate information on the population of Colmar in the medieval period. In the heart of the city, the redevelopment project of the Cathedral Square, carried by the City of Colmar, has motivated the prescription of a preventive archaeological excavation by the State (Drac Grand-Est).

When we implement complex cognitive processes, for example when making decisions, we are subject to cognitive bias. But what about simpler processes, such as those involved in the most basic learning? In a new study analyzing data from all previous research in the field, researchers from Inserm and ENS-PSL show that not only are positivity and confirmation biases present even in the simplest human and animal cognitive processes, but also that incorporating them into learning algorithms would enhance their performance.

Researchers have demonstrated the role of a non-coding RNA in the development of aggressive tumors, particularly in breast cancer. The study, conducted in collaboration between the Institut Curie, Inserm, CNRS, Institut Paoli Calmettes and Aix-Marseille University , has just been published in the journal Cell .

Vinyl polymers, commonly referred to as "plastics," are ubiquitous materials. They are extremely interesting for their ease of synthesis and their great diversity in terms of architecture and functionality.

Antibiotic resistance represents a major public health challenge, associated with a high mortality rate. While bacteriophages - viruses that kill bacteria - could be a solution for fighting antibiotic-resistant pathogens, various obstacles stand in the way of their clinical development.

Certain unrelated deadly fungi produce the same toxin, amanitin. Where this substance comes from, however, and how it is made, is unknown. INRAE scientists teamed up with the Kunming Institute of Botany in China to better understand the molecular processes behind the production of this toxin. Published in PNAS, these ground-breaking results expand our understanding of the metabolism of fungal toxins and offer new perspectives on their role in the environment.

Within the EHT collaboration, the CNRS and IRAM participated in the creation of a first image of the black hole Sagittarius A*. Astronomers have unveiled the first image of the supermassive black hole at the centre of our own Milky Way galaxy. This result provides overwhelming evidence that the object is indeed a black hole and yields valuable clues about the workings of such giants, which are thought to reside at the centre of most galaxies.

Half of childhood cancers arise during the development of the human embryo, which greatly complicates research into these diseases. The team of Valérie Castellani, CNRS senior researcher at the Mechanisms in Integrated Life Sciences (MeLiS) laboratory (CNRS / INSERM / Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University) has thus developed a model that optimally simulates the human embryonic environment by grafting human cancer cells into a chick embryo.

Publication of the IGFL in the journal Animal genetics on March 14, 2022. CNRS-INEE communication on May 3, 2022. We investigated the controversial origin of domestic sheep ( Ovis aries ) using large samples of contemporary and ancient domestic individuals and their closest wild relatives: the Asiatic mouflon ( Ovis gmelini ), the urial ( Ovis vignei ) and the argali ( Ovis ammon ).