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The toromiro is a small tree which had grown on the Easter Island for about 35.000 years. Human pressure, linked to important climatic fluctuations and the massive importation of sheep during the 19th century, provoked its extinction. The toromiro was saved by Thor Heyerdahl in 1956, who preserved some seeds. An interdisciplinary program is devoted to its culture and its reintroduction on the island. This program needs some genetic investigations.

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Toromiro
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In order to obtain a circulatory trajectory in a particle accelerator, magnets are used to deviate the electron beam. The beam losts energy which is emitted at the exterior of the accelerator, in a form of light, in a variety of wavelength, going from the infrared to the X-rays: this is the synchrotron radiation. This film recounts the use of the synchrotron radiation, from 1962 to 2000.

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From LURE to SOLEIL
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Experts who study computer viruses can have different views. Some are able to exterminate them thank to the study of their mechanism. Some are theorists and work on studies linking mathematics, informatics and biology. Some also are fascinated by these strange creations and devote well-information provided websites to them. In each case, viruses arouse passion.

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Warning! Viruses!
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Many types of software, management ones essentially, which are used today, were conceived about twenty years ago. In this time, the limited memory capacities forced computer engineers to code the date into two numbers. On the 1st January of 2000, the numbers 00 will be displayed, succeeding to 99. And then, 00 could mean 1900, and it could have serious consequences. In this film, four computer engineers explain the problems cause, show possible solutions and try to evaluate the cost due to the…

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Big Bug
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De la molécule, assemblage d'atomes, à la particule élémentaire, constituant ultime de la matière, ces quatre films montrent quelques aspects de l'infiniment petit. Les Quarks : ce film d'animation montre les propriétés des quarks, composants des neutrons et des protons. 1989 - 5 minutes Nanomonde : le microscope de proximité (ou microscope à force atomique) permet de visualiser les atomes ou les molécules à la surface d'un matériau. 1995 - 7 minutes En…

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Au coeur de la matière
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The new imaging equipments for medical diagnosis, which can show the depths of the human body are described in their use in hospitals by physicians and scientists in various fields. The Orsay hospital, thanks to a cyclotron, can produce radioactive elements, which, fastened to biological molecules, are detected by a positron camera, which can follow the motions of these tracers in the human body. At Institut Curie, the radioactive molecules injected in the body are tracked by a gamma camera…

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Fragmented body (The)
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Among the Ekonda of Zaire, the most important moment in a woman's life is undoubtedly the birth of her first child. The young nursing mother, called Walé, returns to her parents where she is confined for 2 to 5 years. Chantal, a young woman living in the village of Ikongo will be coming out of reclusion. She prepares a performance of dances and songs.

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Walé Chantal
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In Cape Town, South Africa, the new year is a time when thousands of people put on bright uniforms and make up their faces in black and white. They all come from the "coloured" community, one of the victims of segregation and apartheid. The new year festivals consist in competitions between troupes of "Minstrels", choirs and brass bands. They provide an occasion for tightening community bonds as well as for forgetting about the hardships of ordinary life in South Africa. In 1994, just before…

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Cape town minstrels (The)
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At the end of the 19th century, E.J. Marey and E. Muybridge separately invented instruments which permit to study the musculoskeletal movements of the big mammals, in particular the horse. Observing the musculoskeletal of small mammals is complicated, because their movements are fastest and their fur hides their limbs. The tachycineradiography, a technique which associates high-speed cinematography to radiography, permits to discover the whole geometry of their skeleton, and to analyze their…

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The Littles in The Bigs ' Race.
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At the occasion of the 5th International Conference dedicated to quasicristals (Avignon, 1995), twelve researchers, physicists, chemists or metallurgists, are interviewed. Four of them are the “discoverers” of the quasicristals : Dan Shechtman (Israel), John Cahn (United States), Ilan Blech (Israel) et Denis Gratias (France).

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The Quasicristals
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This film shows the restoration of an Osiris statuette (exceptional because of its height), dating from the 25th or 26th Egyptian dynasty. The first operation consists in describing very precisely the exterior aspect of the statuette. Then a cleaning of its surface is done. Finally, a detailed study of its production and its decoration is done.

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Osiris

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