A team of Inserm and CNRS researchers from the Institute of Pharmacology and Structural Biology—or IPBS (CNRS / Université Toulouse III—Paul Sabatier)—have identified a protein that acts like a sensor detecting various allergens in the respiratory tract responsible for asthma attacks.

During the nighttime, it is hotter in the city than in nearby suburbs or the countryside. But just how much hotter differs between cities. Researchers from the MSE 2 (CNRS / MIT) international joint research laboratory and the Centre Interdisciplinaire des Nanosciences de Marseille (CNRS / Aix-Marseille University) 1 have shown that the determining factor is how cities are structured: more organized cities, like many in North America with straight and perpendicular streets, trap more heat.

Neuropathic pain is a chronic illness affecting 7-10% the population in France and for which there is no effective treatment. Researchers at the Institute for Neurosciences of Montpellier (INSERM/Université de Montpellier) and the Laboratory for Therapeutic Innovation (CNRS/Université de Strasbourg) have uncovered the mechanism behind the appearance and continuation of pain.

Marie Bannier, a former normal student in the Biology Department at the ENS de Lyon, participated in the research and writing of this scientific publication as part of her 4th year. During a myocardial infarction, commonly known as a heart attack, the blood supply to part of the heart muscle is cut off.

Comets made up of two lobes, such as Chury, visited by the Rosetta spacecraft, are produced when the debris resulting from a destructive collision between two comets clumps together again.

The archaeological site of Sedeinga is located in Sudan, a hundred kilometers to the north of the third cataract of the Nile, on the river's western shore. Known especially for being home to the ruins of the Egyptian temple of Queen Tiye, the royal wife of Amenhotep III, the site also includes a large necropolis containing sepulchers dating from the kingdoms of Napata and Mereo (seventh century BCE–fourth century CE), a civilization 1 mixing local traditions and Egyptian influences.

Through a quirk of nature called "gravitational lensing," a natural lens in space amplified a very distant star's light. Astronomers using Hubble took advantage of this phenomenon to pinpoint the faraway star and set a new distance record for the farthest individual star ever seen. They also used the distant star to test one theory of dark matter, and to probe the make-up of a galaxy cluster.

Fields, streets and cities, but also forests planted in rank and file, and dead straight rivers: humans shape nature to better suit their purposes, and not only since the onset of industrialization. Such influences are well documented in the Amazonian rainforest. On the other hand, the influence of humans was debated in Central Africa where major interventions seem to have occurred there 2,600 years ago: Potsdam geoscientist Yannick Garcin and his team have published a report on their findings in the journal PNAS.

Botai horses were tamed in Kazakhstan 5,500 years ago and thought to be the ancestors of today's domesticated horses. . . until a team led by researchers from the CNRS and Université Toulouse III–Paul Sabatier sequenced their genome. Their findings published on 22 February 2018 in Science are startling: these equids are the progenitors not of the modern domesticated horse, but rather of Przewalski's horses—previously presumed wild! The earliest proof of equine domestication points to the steppes of Central Asia roughly 5,500 years ago.

MUSE spectrograph reveals that nearly the entire sky in the early Universe is glowing with Lyman-alpha emission Deep observations made with the MUSE spectrograph on ESO's Very Large Telescope have uncovered vast cosmic reservoirs of atomic hydrogen surrounding distant galaxies. The exquisite sensitivity of MUSE allowed for direct observations of dim clouds of hydrogen glowing with Lyman-alpha emission in the early Universe - revealing that almost the whole night sky is invisibly aglow.

At a global scale, just 12 grape varieties (or 1% of cultivated varieties) occupy up to 80% of vineyards in some countries. Scientists from INRA and Harvard University in the USA have suggested that one of the levers that could be operated to adapt wine-growing to climate change is to exploit the diversity of other cultivated varieties by planting those that are less well known, and thus encouraging winegrowers and consumers to adopt new practices.

Coordinated by INRA, the GlutN Project aims to explore the mechanisms of non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS), assess its prevalence and identify clinical markers with the goal of developing suitable bread products. The GlutN Project was launched on 30 January 2018 in Paris. Found in the grains of numerous cereals, including wheat, gluten is a composite of proteins which gives flour the viscoelastic properties it needs to add shape to bread products.

The Tara Oceans expedition (2009-2013) has enabled the collection of plankton samples in all of the world's oceans on board the schooner Tara , and the creation of catalogues of species and genes on a scale never before undertaken.

Phytoplankton blooms are one of the most important factors contributing to the efficiency of the carbon pump in the North Atlantic Ocean. To better understand this phenomenon, the ERC remOcean 1 project, led by researchers at the Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche (CNRS/UPMC), has developed a new class of robots: biogeochemical profiling floats, the first robots able to collect data in the ocean throughout the year.

PicSat will be launched into Earth orbit on 12 January 2018 to study the star Beta Pictoris, its exoplanet and its famous debris disk, thanks to a small telescope 5 cm in diameter.

The quantum Hall effect (QHE) is one of the most important effects being studied by solid-state physicists today. Measuring the limits at which it breaks down is extremely important - not only for fundamental physics but also for applying the effect as a resistance standard for redefining the kilogram.