Listen! It’s the Week of Sound

The Youtube channel Zeste de science explores all aspects of scientific research, proving that even the most complicated scientific facts can be explained in less than 5 minutes, and that even the most seemingly trivial events of everyday life, if thoroughly studied, can contribute to the biggest technological advances. Episode 18: Zeste de science presents the first episode of Ecorce de recherche, an immersion into archives of last century's scientific research. Every…

Birds are an increasingly rare sight in our cities. In this report, researchers from the Centre for Biological Studies of Chizé (CEBC) investigate the problems – noise, light, lack of food – that affect various species of birds in urban areas, and seek solutions to save them from extinction.

Portrait de Mylène Pardoën, lauréate de la Médaille de Cristal 2020 du CNRS, Archéologue du paysage sonore à la Maison des sciences de l'Homme Lyon Saint-Étienne, créatrice et coordinatrice des projets Bretez et NOMADHISS, experte scientifique pour la restauration de Notre-Dame.

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.

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…

Ce quatrième épisode de la série "Langues vivantes, langues vitales", pose la problématique de l'apprentissage des langues à tradition orale. Sans traces écrites, comment apprendre et étudier ces langues ? La constitution de données primaires est une étape primordiale pour leur analyse. Paulette Roulon-Doko et Isabelle Bril, linguistes de terrain, nous expliquent leurs méthodes et le matériel utilisés lors de leur travail au sein des communautés linguistiques qu'elles étudient.

Protected by the topography, mountain valleys have always been diverse places for plants, animals, and even languages. In the foothills of the Himalayas lies the Yongning Plain, known locally as the "Central Plain": home of the Na culture. Alexis Michaud, a linguist at the CNRS, has been studying the Na language for over 10 years. Year after year, he has been welcomed by numerous family members of Tashi, an anthropologist and linguist specialising in the Na culture. …

There is a unique territory in France called "le Croissant", which runs along the Massif Central from the west of the Limousin to the east of the Auvergne. To the north, this territory is bordered by the area of the Oïl languages, which includes French, and to the south by the area where Occitan (or langue d'oc) is traditionally spoken. In 2017, around twenty researchers, most of them from the CNRS, joined together to participate in a multidisciplinary project, the ANR ""Les…

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.

Researchers have developed tools that allow the acoustics of guitars, violins and cellos to be modified in real time. These new intelligent instruments are of particular interest to today's classical music composers.

Sperm whales spend most of their lives hunting in the depths of the sea. To study them, a team of researchers used a floating autonomous ship equipped with microphones and a sound card so powerful that it can precisely locate the animals with pinpoint accuracy."

Ingénieure d'études en techniques expérimentales au Laboratoire d'acoustique de l'université du Mans(Laum), en charge des dispositifs expérimentaux et de leur instrumentation pour l'Opération de recherche sur la thermoacoustique. Depuis plus de vingt ans, Gaëlle Poignand mène des travaux sur les machines thermoacoustiques. Ces machines utilisent l'interaction entre une onde acoustique et un matériau poreux afin de produire du travail à partir de chaleur (moteur) ou de…

Portrait de Juliette Pierre, lauréate de la Médaille de Bronze 2021 du CNRS, chercheuse à l'Institut Jean le Rond d'Alembert, spécialiste de l'acoustique des bulles et des mousses. " Mon envie de faire de la recherche et mon approche de la physique m'ont été communiquées tout au long de mon parcours universitaire. Ce qui m'anime en recherche : observer et comprendre les mécanismes physiques derrière des événements de nos vies quotidiennes. Le ploc d'une bulle qui éclate, les…

Portrait de Philippe Schlenker, lauréat de la médaille d'argent du CNRS 2021, directeur de recherche à l'Institut Jean-Nicod, directeur de l'équipe Linguae, global distinguished Professor à l'université de New York et spécialiste de la signification. " Venu de la philosophie et des sciences sociales, mes premiers modèles furent la logique et l'économie, qui permettaient de parler de thèmes classiques des humanités avec la clarté et la rigueur des sciences. La linguistique…

Portrait de Judit Gervain lauréate de la Médaille de Bronze 2018 du CNRS. Chercheuse en neurosciences cognitives développementales, spécialisée dans la compréhension de l'apprentissage de la langue maternelle par les nourrissons, au Laboratoire psychologie de la perception (DR01).

The guitar is one of the most popular instruments in the world. And yet we still know little about how its materials, geometry, and assembly interact to shape its final sound. In this video, we meet the researchers who are trying to uncover the secrets of the favorite instrument of Django Reinhardt, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix.

A group of researchers has launched a vast project to study the reproduction behavior of the tree frog “hyla arborea”. Thierry Lengagne and his team from the laboratory for river hydrosystems ecology develop different experiences to test tree frogs in laboratory, in order to understand the complex mechanisms that determine the choice of their partner.

Cornas, or conches, were used before at Arbo in Galicia, in order to indicate the beginning and the end of the water irrigation times to beneficiaries. A conch ringer used to wander through irrigated parcels to warn beneficiaries of the changing.

The High Commission of the Directorate of Inventions is studying Jean Perrin's acoustic device designed for the French army to pinpoint enemy positions precisely by sound detection.

A bord d'un voilier en rade de Toulon, la Direction des Inventions exécute des expériences d'écoute sous-marine sous la direction de Jean Perrin. (Texte issu du catalogue des Archives Françaises du Film).