news 2023

The ocean's capacity to store atmospheric carbon dioxide is some 20% greater than the estimates contained in the latest IPCC report 1 . These are the findings of a study to be published in the journal Nature on December 6, 2023, led by an international team including a biologist from the CNRS 2 . The scientists looked at the role played by plankton in the natural transport of carbon from surface waters down to the seabed.

Beef currently accounts for 21% of the world's meat consumption, placing it third after poultry and pork. It therefore plays a crucial role in the global food system, with great economic and cultural importance in many countries. However, its production has a high environmental impact, mainly due to greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.

A major breakthrough has been unveiled in Nature Communications, revealing the results of an in-depth study on the beneficial effect of temporal crop diversification in reducing pesticide use in France. These results, based on a detailed analysis of more than 14,000 observations, pave the way for an in-depth understanding of the links between temporal crop diversity and dependence on pesticides, be they fungicides, insecticides or herbicides.

In the spring, Alpine glaciers sometimes don a sheer red or orangish veil. Known as 'red snow' or 'blood snow', this phenomenon is caused by the blooming of Sanguina nivaloides , a microscopic alga. Scientists from the CNRS, the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), Météo-France, INRAE, and Université Grenoble Alpes 1 turned their attention to this organism, which forms the pillar of a snowy ecosystem still poorly understood.

In spring, Alpine glaciers sometimes turn a thin layer of red or orange. This phenomenon, known as "glacier blood", is due to the proliferation of a microscopic alga called Sanguina nivaloides . Scientists 1 from CNRS, CEA, Météo-France, INRAE and Grenoble Alpes University have been studying this organism, which forms the backbone of a little-known snow ecosystem.

PRESS RELEASE LED BY WESTERN SYDNEY UNIVERSITY - INRAE participated to a new research led by Western Sydney University's Dr Jürgen Knauer, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, published today [Saturday 18 November 2023 AEST] in leading international journal Science Advances paints an uncharacteristically upbeat picture for the planet.

Researchers from INRAE, Universidad del Desarrollo (Chile), University of Geneva and University of Grenoble developed a new method to assess the risk associated with rockfalls in the mountains, taking into account various triggering factors and all the issues exposed. They successfully tested it in the Chilean Andes.

Unlike animals, plants have cells that are all surrounded by a strong wall. This protects them but also encloses them in a rigid skeleton. So how can they grow despite this wall? Scientists from INRAE and the CNRS, in collaboration with Swiss and Belgian teams, have now unlocked part of this secret.

The largest floating ice shelves in the polar ice sheet have lost more than a third of their volume since 1978.

French and Chinese scientists have made surprising discoveries about the crucial roles of soil fungi in forest ecosystems. This work arose from an international collaboration between researchers at INRAE, the University of Lorraine, the University of Aix-Marseille, Beijing Forestry University, the Kunming Institute of Botany, and the Yunnan Key Laboratory for Fungal Diversity and Green Development.

Using a new analysis method for satellite images, an international research team, coordinated by the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and INRAE, mapped for the first time annual changes in global forest biomass between 2010 and 2019. Researchers discovered that boreal and temperate forests have become the main global carbon sinks.

Polysiloxanes, the scientific name for silicones, possess exceptional properties, and are used in numerous fields ranging from cosmetics to aerospace. They are absolutely everywhere! However, small cyclic oligosiloxanes impurities - including substances classified as toxic for the environment and identified as potential endocrine disruptors - can form during their synthesis.

Scientists have discovered fossil evidence of a cyclical climate on Mars, with wet and dry seasons like those on Earth. This environment, in which simple organic molecules have already been discovered, may have provided ideal conditions for the formation of complex organic compounds. This work opens up new prospects for research into the processes underlying the origin of life, of which no vestiges remain on Earth.

Numerous studies are now reporting the harmful effects of air pollution on the central nervous system (neurodegenerative diseases in adults, neurodevelopmental disorders in children). Glaucoma, the second leading cause of blindness worldwide, is a neurodegenerative disease of the optic nerve whose principal characteristic is thinning of the retinal nerve fiber layer.

Although the prehistoric site of Eynan-Mallaha in northern Israel has been thoroughly examined since 1955, it still holds some surprises for scientists. Seven prehistoric wind instruments known as flutes, recently identified by a Franco-Israeli team 1 , are the subject of an article published on 9 June in Nature Scientific Reports .

  Bird populations across continental Europe have declined by 25% in 40 years, with this figure reaching nearly 60% for species found in agricultural environments. Intensive farming is the main source of pressure linked to declining bird populations. These findings come from the largest and most comprehensive bird study to date in Europe.

Air pollution is an acknowledged environmental factor in high blood pressure. It consists of a mixture of particles and gases whose combined effects on human health are not yet well known. A team from Inserm and Sorbonne Université, assisted by international collaborators, used continuous monitoring to study the daily life impact of a mixture of five air pollutants on the blood pressure of 221 MobiliSense study participants in the Greater Paris area.

A team from the CEA and CNRS have discovered the existence of mirusviruses: a major group of viruses abundant on the surface of the seas and oceans, where they infect single-celled plankton. These findings appear in Nature on 19 April. The discovery provides a better understanding of the scope of ocean biodiversity and the importance of viruses in these ecosystems.

Publication of the Physics Laboratory in the Physical Review Fluids on April 4, 2023. Communication of the CNRS on April 3, 2023. Extreme heat events are rare, but have significant consequences on living beings and their environments. Anticipating their arrival is a major challenge. In an article published in Physical Review Fluids on April 4, an interdisciplinary team of French scientists, including members of the Physics Laboratory of ENS de Lyon, unveils an artificial intelligence able to predict heat waves.

Extreme heatwaves are rare, but they have major consequences on living beings and their environments. Anticipating their arrival is a central challenge. In an article published in Physical Review Fluids on April 4th, an interdisciplinary team of French scientists 1 from the CNRS, the CEA, and the Claude Bernard University Lyon 1 unveiled artificial intelligence 2 that can predict heatwaves.