Va savoir

Avec ses 50 mètres de haut et ses dizaines de miroirs (ou héliostats), le four solaire d'Odeillo semble tout droit sorti d'une oeuvre de science-fiction - tendance rétrofuturiste. Mais il est surtout le roi de sa catégorie, capable de concentrer plus de 10 000 fois la puissance du Soleil pour atteindre des températures inouïes. De quoi nous donner l'envie de jouer avec le feu, mais surtout permettre aux scientifiques qui y travaillent de dompter cette énergie inépuisable, et de…

Alors que les JO de Paris approchent à grands pas, tous les athlètes s'entraînent pour grappiller encore quelques millimètres ou quelques centièmes de seconde. C'est là que la science peut entrer en jeu : analyses ultra-poussées, équipements de pointe ou environnements en réalité virtuelle, ce nouvel épisode de VaSavoir vous emmène à l'Institut des sciences du mouvement, à Marseille, où les chercheurs tentent d'améliorer les performances des plus grands athlètes... comme des sportifs du…

Visibles ou cachés du grand public, sublimes ou peu ragoûtants, les collections du Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle comptent des dizaines de millions de spécimens de presque toutes les espèces, disparues ou non, qui peuplent notre planète. Ils racontent à la fois l'histoire du vivant et celle des scientifiques qui l'ont étudiée, et révèlent des informations cruciales pour comprendre les mécanismes de l'évolution, ainsi que les changements qui affectent la Terre. Il est donc crucial de les…

Their brains may be tiny, but they manage to find their way, communicate and even develop complex strategies to feed their communities... Social insects therefore demonstrate remarkable intelligence, which allows them to create real societies despite their brains being infinitely smaller than ours. But how can we actually measure the intelligence of an insect with which we have (almost) nothing in common? Head to the Animal Cognition Research Centre in Toulouse, where scientists have developed…

A quarter of a century ago, we discovered the very first exoplanet, located outside our solar system. Since then, we have discovered over 5000! The next challenge? To study their atmospheres and, perhaps, discover a new Earth... In this new episode we take you to the Paris Observatory, at the Meudon site, to meet scientists from the Laboratory of Space Studies and Instrumentation in Astrophysics (LESIA) who are designing extraordinary instruments to track planets at the edge of the galaxy.

Their brains may be tiny, but they manage to find their way, communicate and even develop complex strategies to feed their communities... Social insects therefore demonstrate remarkable intelligence, which allows them to create real societies despite their brains being infinitely smaller than ours. But how can we actually measure the intelligence of an insect with which we have (almost) nothing in common? Head to the Animal Cognition Research Centre in Toulouse, where scientists have developed…

Whether we think they intend to annihilate us, replace us in factories or become our slaves (or even our friends!), robots have fuelled our fantasies for centuries... Especially when they look like us. Except that actually we don't come across many of them other than in fiction. So in this episode of #VaSavoir we asked what is ultimately the point of trying to create humanoid robots? And scientifically, what is really hidden behind this seemingly Promethean desire? To gain a better…

In this very first episode of #VaSavoir, Maxime meets snakes with Xavier Bonnet and his team from the Chizé Centre for Biological Studies. Xavier Bonnet has studied snakes for more than 30 years and is one of the most well-known French herpetologists. A perfect opportunity to consider if it is actually reasonable to fear them, but also to try to understand some strange evolutionary mechanisms and the need to make space for life in this over-tidy room that is our landscape…