Once upon a time there was life

How did Australopitecus, Homo habilis and our other ancestors or "cousins" walk? To find out, the biomechanists and computer scientists from the HoBis project are modelling the movements of humans equipped with sensors, as well as baboons, who occasionally walk on their two hind legs.

A network of cells that can learn and adapt...and all this without a brain! The Blob continues to fascinate scientists like Audrey Dussutour, who has studied it for years. She hopes that it will reveal new properties and insights into the mystery of life itself.

Discovered in the 1990s, Little Foot is the most complete skeleton of an Australopithecus ever unearthed. Research continues on this exceptional fossil as scientists reveal details about her cognitive abilities using a micro-tomographic scanner.

Palaeontologists are also interested in biodiversity. Through the study of the species morphological diversity, they allow us to improve our understanding of the consequences due to the climatic and environmental changes. Interviewed in the Claude Bernard University located in Lyon (France), Gildas Merceron explains in this short film this approach.

Over the years, they have not only lost their gray color, but also their eyes. A subpopulation of Mexican cave-dwelling fish has seen its morphology profoundly changed over generations. A team of researchers went on location in Mexico to study these fish in their natural environment.

Antoine Spire interviews Guillaume Lecointre, a taxonomy researcher and teacher at the French Museum of Natural History of Paris, in the laboratory “Taxonomy, adaptation, evolution”.

Forty-five million years ago, cetaceans lived on land. Adapting to the marine element over the centuries, they have nevertheless kept from their distant past certain behavioural, physiological and sensory abilities that differentiate them from other aquatic species. Off the coast of Spain, a team of researchers is studying a group of pilot whales to demonstrate that these animals have a sense of taste and smell and use them every day to communicate and feed. The outcome of this work would…

Every day, marine viruses kill 40% of our oceans' bacteria. And yet these biological entities are still poorly known. For example, we still know little about their role in the regulation of microalgae, the first link in the food chain that also produces close to a quarter of our planet's oxygen. We travel to the Roscoff Marine Station to see how researchers there are trying to isolate, and better understand these fearsome predators.