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Could it be that water contains an almost inexhaustible source of energy, and above all, that it is within everyone's reach? And what if hydrogen would redefine the contours of our future? Faced with global climate change, the quantities of CO2 from industry and transportation that are released into the atmosphere are widely blamed. In order for humanity and the planet to imagine a viable future by 2100, it is urgent to find a sustainable alternative to our fossil fuels. And in this quest for…

Episode 7 : "Déplacer des montagnes", ce n'est pas toujours une métaphore... Parfois, ce sont LITTÉRALEMENT des hélicoptères qui transportent des morceaux de montagne à travers les Alpes. Mais promis : c'est pour leur bien !

Directeur de recherche CNRS, Marc Antonini est spécialisé dans la compression de données, qu'il s'agisse d'images, de vidéos ou de modèles 3D. Ses travaux de doctorat ont par exemple servi pour la norme JPEG 2000, et ses premiers travaux au CNRS, en collaboration avec le CNES, ont permis de développer un des systèmes embarqués dans les satellites Pléiades (couple de deux satellites optiques d'observation de la Terre). Auteur de treize brevets, Marc Antonini a régulièrement collaboré avec…

Patricia Rousselle est spécialisée dans la cicatrisation et la régénération de la peau. Cette directrice de recherche du CNRS au Laboratoire de biologie tissulaire et d'ingénierie thérapeutique étudie le dialogue entre les cellules, du derme comme de l'épiderme, et les protéines présentes dans leur microenvironnement. Ses travaux l'ont amenée à développer des traitements pour les grands brûlés, pour la cicatrisation post-chirurgie et sur les tumeurs qui touchent la peau. Patricia…

Jacques Gierak est ingénieur de recherche CNRS et responsable de la plateforme Instrumentation et sources d'ions au Centre de nanosciences et de nanotechnologie. Il a également oeuvré dans la nanofabrication par faisceaux d'ions focalisés (FIB). Avec ses nombreuses avancées brevetées, il a notamment conçu l'outil FIB Nanowriter, capable de structurer du graphène, un matériau formé d'une seule et unique couche d'atomes de carbone dont les propriétés pourraient trouver des applications dans l…

Ce nouvel épisode d'Un zeste pour la planète nous parle d'éoliennes... Mais surtout d'une machine extraordinaire, qui permet de simuler la rotation de la Terre et ses écoulements atmosphériques pour réaliser des expériences inédites. Un instrument précieux lorsqu'il s'agit d'implanter au mieux des parcs éoliens en haute mer, là où ils sont soumis à diverses forces terrestres...

Antoine Aiello, Nora Dempsey, François Jérôme and Amanda Silva Brun are the four recipients of the CNRS 2021 Innovation Medal. Created 10 years ago, this distinction honours people whose outstanding research has led to significant technological, economic, therapeutic or social innovations that promote French scientific research. From patent filings and pre-maturation programmes for innovative projects, to a joint research laboratory with economic stakeholders and accompanying…

Waterproofing, fire-proofing and non-stick coating. These technologies bring safety and comfort to our daily lives, but are based on chemicals called per and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS. Nicknamed “forever chemicals”, these molecules are volatile - they can be emitted by the materials they are applied on and get released into the air. There, they can linger in the environment for decades and travel vast distances, accumulating in regions far from their initial site of emission. In the…

The aim of several scientists is to trace the changes of a comet during its journey through the solar system by reproducing the thermal and light characteristics of the cosmos in the laboratory. This will enable them to understand where the elements that formed the Earth came from and to track down the first traces of life.

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.

In recent years parasites such as the tiger mosquito or the tick have continued to conquer new territory, especially in Europe and the United States. What causes this proliferation? How to protect from it? The scientific community is trying to shed light on the phenomenon, which is responsible in particular for the transmission of certain animal diseases to humans.

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.

Does the dialogue that emerges between two musicians improvising together follow patterns similar to language? A team of scientists is trying to find the answer in the STMS laboratory, with an ingenious experiment.

They place microphones in sunflower fields... to count bees and other pollinators! Discover the ingenious experiments to study these diverse insects and their effects on our crops, conducted by a team from the Centre for Biological Studies in Chizé.

Portrait de Laurent Blanchoin, lauréat de la Médaille d'Argent 2019 du CNRS. Chercheur en biochimie du cytosquelette et co-responsable de l'équipe CytomorphoLab de l'Institut de recherche interdisciplinaire de Grenoble (DR11), unité de Physiologie cellulaire et végétale.

Portrait de Ludovic Métivier, lauréat de la Médaille de Bronze 2019 du CNRS. Chercheur en mathématiques appliquées au laboratoire Jean Kuntzmann (DR11) et en charge, avec les géophysiciens de l'Institut des sciences de la Terre, du projet SEISCOPE autour de l'imagerie sismique haute résolution du sous-sol.

Portrait de Martien Ilse Den Hertog, lauréate de la Médaille de Bronze 2019 du CNRS. Chercheuse en physique des matériaux au sein de l'Institut Néel (DR11), spécialisée dans la microscopie électronique en transmission sur des nano-objets semi-conducteurs.

Portrait de Pierre Neyron, lauréat de la Médaille de Cristal 2019 du CNRS. Ingénieur de recherche au sein du Pôle d'ingénierie multidisciplinaire du Laboratoire d'informatique de Grenoble (DR11), spécialiste de l'informatique des datacentres, infrastructures logicielles et matérielles pour le BigData, le Cloud, le calcul intensif et l'intelligence artificielle.

Flying an airplane into a thunderstorm may not sound like a good idea. Unless you are a physicist. Scientists from the Exaedre project have led an exceptional mission to study the physics of lightning from up close.

An Ecotron is a device that enables scientists to simulate several climate parameters and control them to study miniature versions of given ecosystems. A team in France decided to study Arizona savannahs. Locked in hermetic climate chambers, they analyse different plants from the savannah after accurately calibrating the surrounding light, the irrigation system, and the composition of the atmosphere. Thanks to the collected data, the team will be able to forecast the ecosystem's reaction to any…

The green sea turtle is now facing a high risk of extinction. In order to protect it, we first need to understand it better. That is why, since 2013, a team of 40 researchers and volunteers have been diving in Martinican waters to catch these reptiles. Before releasing the turtles into the ocean, they have been equipping them with satellite tags, cameras and microchips. This marking system enables scientists to follow the turtles' migratory patterns, dive behaviour, and to study the…

Can the intonation of somebody's voice tell about their social traits? At IRCAM, researchers conducted experiments to understand how the brain was able to analyse the speech prosody of a speaker, thus demonstrating whether someone is trustworthy or has a domineering attitude towards the person they are talking to. They developed an experimental protocol to understand with which representations in mind one person makes an opinion about the personality of another. Using a phase vocoder, the…

To maximise the safety of an aircraft despite the presence of multiple holes, researchers at LMT-Cachan are trying to understand and control the mechanics of holes. One needs to drill millions of holes to assemble the structures that make up an aircraft to be assembled together, which can create weak points. Several tests are therefore carried out by engineers, who study the resistance of aeronautical materials and structures, to predict how a perforated material will eventually bend. By…

In the forest of Plougastel, located in Finistère in Brittany, fragments of shale plates have been discovered, along with other archaeological materials. Decorated with abstract and naturalistic engravings, these tablets would date back to the early Azilian period, about 14,000 years ago. This period, still little known to prehistorians, is nevertheless important because it marks the transition between the previous period, the Magdalenian, and the Azilian, the period at the beginning of which…

Within 35 minutes the film explores the inspiration and the story behind MUSE, why it was needed how it came into life over a nine year long development phase. It highlights the needed international European cooperation to realise the project and the participation of some of the hundreds of researchers, technicians and engineers involved. The innovative technology of MUSE and the front-line science done with it are discussed as well. Also the delicate installation process and the moment of…

C'est dans la région des Hauts Plateaux, au centre du Vietnam, que vivent « les Montagnards », une vingtaine d'ethnies qui pratiquent le jeu de gong. Cet instrument à percussion est présent dans tous les rituels et festivités qui accompagnent la vie du village. Décrit depuis deux siècles par des explorateurs, des ethnologues et des historiens de tous pays, le gong n'est pas seulement un instrument de musique, mais aussi un objet complexe et pluriel qui participe de l'expression de la culture de…

About 27 % of French mainland coastline is eroding. These areas became increasingly vulnerable in recent years. With a growing population living less than 25 kilometres from sea shores in France and all over the world new challenges are looming. Not only erosion and receding coastlines but also major societal issues. There are three types of coastal environments in France: estuaries, cliffs and sandy beaches. As they have extremely different morphologies, the processes causing changes and…

Frédérick Douzet is Professor at the French institute of Geopolitics (Institut Français de Géopolitique) at the university Paris 8 Vincennes - Saint-Denis and Castex Chair in Cyberstrategy. Her research focuses on the geopolitical stakes of cyberspace, i.e. the power rivalries linked to the global expansion of the Internet and the communication arena it generates, between a multiplicity of stakeholders (States, companies, individuals, political groups, hackers, criminals, etc.). Be it data…

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.

Pierre-Olivier Dittmar, historien de formation, est ingénieur d'études à l'EHESS au sein du laboratoire "Groupement d'anthropologie historique de l'occident médiéval" (GAHOM). Dans ses recherches, il utilise les méthodes et outils de l'anthropologie et s'intéresse particulièrement à la façon dont évoluent les cultures. En se fondant sur un problème ou une question d'aujourd'hui, il essaie de comprendre les réponses propres au Moyen Age. Il étudie ainsi les relations entre hommes et…

Anne-Marie Turcan-Verkerk is a text historian and director of studies at the Ecole pratique des hautes études and she heads the library history research team at the CNRS institute for text research and history (Institut de recherche et d'histoire des textes). Her research is about the transmission of texts and their copying and annotation processes and she investigates their traces (in lists and references) in ancient book collections, especially of the Middle Ages. She provides feedback…

Violaine Sebillotte Cuchet, professor of Ancient History at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, is a specialist in the Ancient Greek world of the Archaic and Classical periods (8th B. C. - 4th B. C.). She takes a special interest in gender issues and analyses the discourses and practices of that time, which provide information on the meaning of gender differences as perceived by the Ancients. She studied more specifically the case of Artemisia of Halicarnassus, a warrior woman who…

Initially educated as a philosopher, François Héran started doing research as a sociologist and ethnologist in rural France, southern Spain and Bolivia. Now a senior researcher at the national institute for demographic studies (Institut national des études démographiques - INED), he works on the public political debates on immigration in France and in the Netherlands in 2011-2012. His focus of interest is the argumentations and rethorics used, for which he created a classification and uses a…

To mark the bicentenary of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc's birth, the MAP laboratory (Models and simulations for architecture and heritage) and its teams worked on 3D models of elements from the City of Carcassonne and Pierrefonds Castle. In order to carry out these models, they used drones and numerical tools developed by the laboratory. Part of this work will be presented in an exhibition entitled "Viollet-le-Duc[Trait pour trait/Viollet-le-Duc, line for line]" at the Cité de Carcassonne from June…

Au XIXe siècle, le Moyen Age connait un retour en grâce, sous l'effet d'une revalorisation du patrimoine français et de courants artistiques tels que le romantisme. Ce regain d'intérêt est marqué par de grandes campagnes de restaurations de monuments médiévaux. C'est dans ce contexte que s'inscrit l ' oeuvre de l'architecte Eugène Viollet-le-Duc et la restauration de la cité de Carcassonne, chantier colossal qui dura plus de 60 ans. Olivier Poisson, conservateur général du patrimoine, nous…

When the architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc undertook the renovation of Pierrefonds castle in 1857 at the request of Napoleon III, it was in a state of ruin. This remarkable fortress was one of the greatest castles of the 15th century. The historian Jean-Paul Midant guides us through the different restored parts of the place-forte and unveils the singular conception of the restoration envisaged by Viollet-le-Duc, between restitution and innovation. For the architect, restoring a monument was more…

From September 1996 to January 1999, anthropologist Christian Lallier filmed the construction site of the new technical centre for wood and furniture which had been relocated to Bordeaux. This film, which was shot thirteen years later, is an immersion at the heart of a project that shows a nascent workplace emerging from the professional relations between the various trades in the field. The building, as it is erected from its foundations, is a symbol of the challenges inherent to this…

The atomic probe is a unique scientific instrument: it makes it possible to analyze the composition of a material on an atomic scale and to obtain a 3D model of the arrangement of atoms at the heart of matter. Its origins date back to the 1960s, when Erwin Muller (Univ.of Pennstate) developed the ion microscope to observe atoms in their individuality. The evolution of this technique will be linked to the Material Physics Group, founded by Jean Gallot at the University of Rouen. When he came…

The Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases (IMN) in Bordeaux (France) combines basic research, preclinical and clinical research in the context of neurodegenerative diseases, particularly in Parkinson's disease. This disease, whose origin is not known, affects 150,000 people in France. Researchers of this institute explain its mechanism and treatments that exist as the drug L-Dopa. They offer a solution for deep brain surgery simulation currently practiced in the Pellegrin Hospital…

To the East of Cameroon, grouped on the roadside near a dispensary, surrounded by deforestation and the creation of cobalt mines, Baka Pygmies try to cope with the shock of modernity about which nothing has prepared them. Working with them in the village of Moangue - Le Bosquet since many years, anthropologists and filmaker deviate from their research fields and take step back to make the observation of this mutation.

How do you cry out "Help!" in caiman language? This is the question Thierry Aubin and Nicolas Mathevon, bioacousticians at the CNRS ask themselves. We travel with them to the marshy plains of Venezuela, where they engage sometimes in sporting experiments: capturing young caimans, recording their cries of distress, then broadcasting them to observe the mothers' reactions. The results obtained provide a better understanding of the evolution of sound communication in the animal world.

Fabienne Le Houérou, an historian, a researcher and a filmmaker at IREMAM, conducted a long investigation (ten years of research) to " Arba wa nuss " (4 and 1/2), one of the poorest neighborhoods of the large periphery Cairo, Egypt. In this area, two displaced communities coexist: the Copts, that have fled persecution against Christians in Upper Egypt, and Sudan, having left South Sudan genocide. The researcher delivers a summary of her work and shows how spirituality and Christian religious…

Portrait of Nicole Le Douarin, a major figure of the modern science, whose research domain is embryology and development. She has contributed in the greatest way to a better comprehension of the neural crest formation.

On the 8th April 1911, whilst observing mercury at the temperature of liquid helium -269°C, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes discovered a new and surprising physics phenomenon: superconductivity! This phenomenon is made apparent by two remarkable effects. Superconductors not only conduct an electric current perfectly, they also expel magnetic fields and make magnets levitate. A hundred years after its ' discovery, superconductivity still remains a huge enigma. Many laboratories are…

Rachid Alami, a researcher at the Laboratory for Analysis and Architecture of Systems introduces Jido, a mobile robot that he has elaborated with his team.

Jean-Paul Laumond, a senior researcher at the LAAS (Laboratory for Analysis and Architecture of Systems) introduces HRP2, a humanoid robot.

Glue doesn ' t only exist in our daily life : it ' s also an unknown scientific problem. The idea of this film is to make people rediscover something as banal as glue, which is the object of important questionings. A researcher in mechanics, a chemist and a physicist explain its mechanisms.

Golem Grad is a mysterious island in Macedonia where two fascinating and quite unique phenomena have occurred: the appearance of a new type of dice snake and of a population of homosexual turtles. For ten days, an international team of scientists carries out extensive tests and experiments to try and explain the mysteries of this exceptional ecosystem.

Extraction de l'ADN de globules blancs du sang qui seules possèdent un noyau. en trois étapes : — séparation les cellules sanguines du plasma — destruction des membranes cellulaires pour en extraire le noyau — destruction les membranes du noyau pour en extraire l ' ADN.

A l'occasion de l'année mondiale de la Biodiversité en 2010, le CNRS Images en collaboration avec le Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN) a produit une série de 10 films courts autour de la théorie de l'évolution. A partir d'un animal (baleine, oursin, humain, escargot, méduse, hyène), d'un végétal (petits pois, champignon, peuplier, pollen) ou d'une caractéristique (l'oeil, la plume, le canal incisif), des points clés de l'évolution des espèces sont explicités et permettent une…