http://www.cnrs.fr Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique fr CNRS Mon, 13 Apr 2026 11:56:10 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3181.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3181.htm About 75% of amputees exhibit mobility of their phantom limb. Using this information, in collaboration with physicians¹, researchers from CNRS, Aix-Marseille University and Sorbonne University have developed a prototype capable of detecting these movements and activating a prosthetic arm. The prosthesis does not require any surgery and patients do not need training. The results are published on November 29, 2018 in Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology. Thu, 29 Nov 2018 11:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3176.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3176.htm On October 29, 2018 the European Union announced the projects selected for the FET Flagship on Quantum Technologies, a European research program of unprecedented scope, with funding of one billion euros over ten years. Its objective is to develop quantum technology applications by strengthening partnerships between research and industry, in the fields of measurement, computation, simulation, and information processing and communication. The EU selected twenty projects, nineteen of which are research projects: ten of these research projects are based on French teams, and among these teams thirteen are laboratories affiliated with the CNRS, while two are coordinated by French organizations, Sorbonne Université and Thales. Mon, 29 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3170.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3170.htm Valérie Castellani, Thierry Chartier, and Daniel Le Berre are the recipients of the 2018 CNRS Innovation Medals. All three will be handed their medals during a ceremony held on October 10 in Paris. Since 2011, CNRS Innovation Medals have recognized scientists whose outstanding research has led to innovations having notable technological, economic, therapeutic, or social impacts. Wed, 10 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3138.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3138.htm Toulouse is to host the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF), Europe's largest interdisciplinary gathering on science and innovation, from 9 to 14 July 2018. In parallel with this event for researchers, the city is organising the 'Science in the City' festival from 7 to 15 July, with over 120 events aimed at sharing science with the public. For around ten days, the pulse of Toulouse, European City of Science 2018, will beat to the rhythm of science. CNRS and its laboratories will be playing a major role in both the forum and the festival, two unprecedented events for Toulouse and France. Thu, 05 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3133.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3133.htm How can technology improve our housing conditions? How will we interact with “intelligent” housing? What information is it possible and desirable to share? What future legislative framework for these data is required? Organized by the CNRS, Montpellier University, and Paul Valéry Montpellier 3 University, the Human at Home (HUT ) project will look into these questions thanks to an “observatory apartment” that will be inhabited from October 2018. A member of the consortium, Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole is supporting this project, which is part of its Intelligent City approach. The HUT experiment is inaugurated in Montpelier on June 26, 2018. Tue, 26 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3130.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3130.htm To meet their objective of offering connected devices for the physiological monitoring of laboratory animals without recourse to anesthesia or surgery, researchers from the TIMC-IMAG laboratory (CNRS / Université Grenoble Alpes / Grenoble INP / VetAgro Sup) have developed a jacket that measures rodent cardiac and respiratory activity. This patented tool soon to be released by Etisense, a TIMC-IMAG spin-off company, paves the way for enhancing the quality of research data and advancing animal welfare. Thu, 14 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3125.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3125.htm Marking a world first, researchers from the Étienne Jules Marey Institute of Movement Sciences (CNRS / Aix-Marseille Université) have drawn inspiration from birds to design an aerial robot capable of altering its profile during flight. To reduce its wingspan and navigate through tight spaces, it can reorient its arms, which are equipped with propellers that let it fly like a helicopter. The scientists' work is the subject of an article published in Soft Robotics (May 30, 2018). It paves the way for a new generation of large robots that can move through narrow passages, making them ideal for exploration as well as search and rescue missions. Thu, 31 May 2018 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3093.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3093.htm The CNRS is issuing its second Momentum call for proposals from young male and female researchers around the world, to support their projects in emerging and innovative areas. Researchers in all fields may apply. Winners will receive funding for three years. Thu, 05 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3083.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3083.htm Developed and patented¹ in 2012 and 2014 in the Laboratoire d'Analyse et d'Architecture des Systèmes (LAAS-CNRS) and implemented industrially by Picometrics-Technologies, BIABooster technology can characterize DNA with new precision and sensitivity. When used to analyze residual DNA circulating in the blood, it has identified promising signatures for monitoring patients with cancer. These signatures, presented in the March 20, 2018 issue of Analytical Chemistry, could be confirmed by a larger study led by teams at the Université Paris Descartes, INSERM, AP-HM and AP-HP (Hôpital Européen Georges-Pompidou). Tue, 27 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3079.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3079.htm You can hear the perfect hello. And now you can see it too. Researchers from the CNRS, the ENS, and Aix-Marseille University¹ have established an experimental method that unveils the filter—that is, mental representation—we use to judge people when hearing them say a word as simple as “hello”. What is the ideal intonation for coming across as determined or trustworthy? This method is already used by these researchers for clinical purposes, with stroke survivors, and it opens many new doors for the study of language perception. The team's findings are published in PNAS (March 26, 2018). Mon, 26 Mar 2018 21:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3055.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3055.htm Antoine Petit has been named Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the CNRS. His appointment was confirmed on January 24, 2018, by French president Emmanuel Macron upon the recommendation of Frédérique Vidal, Minister for Higher Education, Research and Innovation. An exceptional grade professor, Antoine Petit was president of the French National Institute for Computer Science and Applied Mathematics (Inria) since October 2014. He acts as non-executive president of the IHEST (Institut des Hautes Etudes pour la Science et la Technologie) since April 2017. Wed, 24 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3035.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3035.htm Dyslexia is a learning difficulty which affects the ability to adopt the automatic reflexes needed to read and write. Several studies have sought to identify the source of the problems encountered by individuals with dyslexia when they read. Little attention, however, has been paid to the mechanisms involved in writing. Sonia Kandel, Professor at the GIPSA-Lab of the Université Grenoble Alpes (CNRS/Université Grenoble Alpes/Grenoble INP) and her team¹ decided to look at the purely motor aspects of writing in children diagnosed with dyslexia. Their results show that orthographic processing in children with dyslexia is so laborious that it can modify or impair writing skills, despite the absence of dysgraphia in these children. The findings of this study are published in the November 2017 edition of Cognitive Neuropsychology. Tue, 28 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3011.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3011.htm Anne Peyroche today assumed the role of interim president of the CNRS. She has taken over from Alain Fuchs, who held the position since 2010. (Fuchs is the new president of Paris Sciences & Lettres, also as of today.) Peyroche has been CNRS Chief Research Officer since January 2016. Tue, 24 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3001.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3001.htm A team of researchers in the GIPSA-Lab (CNRS/Université Grenoble Alpes/Grenoble INP) and at INRIA Grenoble Rhône-Alpes has developed a system that can display the movements of our own tongues in real time. Captured using an ultrasound probe placed under the jaw, these movements are processed by a machine learning algorithm that controls an “articulatory talking head.” As well as the face and lips, this avatar shows the tongue, palate and teeth, which are usually hidden inside the vocal tract. This “visual biofeedback” system, which ought to be easier to understand and therefore should produce better correction of pronunciation, could be used for speech therapy and for learning foreign languages. This work is published in the October 2017 issue of Speech Communication. Fri, 13 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2987.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2987.htm Tiling the plane with a single pattern is a mathematical problem that has interested humans since Antiquity, notably for the aesthetic quality of tiles in mosaics or tiling. One of the unresolved problems in this field that has been puzzling the scientific community since 1918 has now been definitively resolved thanks to Michaël Rao of the Laboratoire d'informatique du parallélisme (CNRS/Inria/ENS de Lyon/Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1). Using computing tools he was able to demonstrate that there are only 15 five-sided patterns that can tile the plane. The research is now available on the Arxiv.org website. Fri, 29 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2963.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2963.htm Anyone who owns an Android smartphone will soon be able to contribute to a research project, simply by recording surrounding noise. The purpose is to establish a participatory map of the sound environment. The NoiseCapture application, which was developed by researchers from the CNRS and IFSTTAR¹, uses signal processing algorithms to calculate acoustic indicators during the user's trips. These geolocated indicators are then anonymously stored in a database to develop noise maps that reflect reality as closely as possible, with extremely dense connections. These noise maps obtained with the help of smartphones could be used by local governments to implement more targeted plans of action for preserving or improving the quality of urban sound environments. Thu, 31 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2913.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2913.htm The ELO system, which most chess federations use today, ranks players by the results of their games. Although simple and efficient, it overlooks relevant criteria such as the quality of the moves players actually make. To overcome these limitations, Jean-Marc Alliot of the Institut de recherche en informatique de Toulouse (IRIT - CNRS/INP Toulouse/Université Toulouse Paul Sabatier/Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès/Université Toulouse Capitole) demonstrates a new system, published on 24 april 2017 in the International Computer Games Association Journal. Mon, 24 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2891.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2891.htm Created in 2007, the European Research Council (ERC) awards individual research grants to talented researchers each year. The funding organization will celebrate its tenth anniversary on 13-19 March 2017 during the "ERC Week", which will close with a scientific event to be held on 21 March in Brussels. The CNRS will participate in this celebration with a series of debates across France, as well as the launch of a website presenting the 360 ERC grant laureates from its laboratories. Thu, 02 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2889.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2889.htm Mon, 20 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2873.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2873.htm Baboons produce vocalizations comparable to vowels. This is what has been demonstrated by an international team coordinated by researchers from the Gipsa-Lab (CNRS/Grenoble INP/Grenoble Alpes University), the Laboratory of Cognitive Psychology (CNRS/AMU), and the Laboratory of Anatomy at the University of Montpellier, using acoustic analyses of vocalizations coupled with an anatomical study of the tongue muscles and the modeling of the acoustic potential of the vocal tract in monkeys. Published in PLOS ONE on January 11, 2017, the data confirm that baboons are capable of producing at least five vocalizations with the properties of vowels, in spite of their high larynx, and that they are capable of combining them when they communicate with their partners. The vocalizations of baboons thus point to a system of speech among non-human primates. Wed, 11 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2855.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2855.htm The European Research Council (ERC) has announced the results of its call for proposals for the "ERC Consolidator Grant 2016," which rewards researchers noted for their excellence and who have 7 to 12 years of experience after their thesis. All disciplines combined, 314 projects were selected in total, of which 43 from France. With 25 recipients, the CNRS tops the ranking once again this year, followed by Oxford University, with 9 recipients. Tue, 13 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2841.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2841.htm After the Paris and Nice attacks, the CNRS endeavored to commit research resources to the fight against terrorism. We take a look back on a year of action that included a call for projects with an overwhelming response rate (the initial findings of which will be shared on 28 November 2016), a series of thematic workshops, and a vast project on memory. Mon, 14 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2699.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2699.htm The ocean is the largest carbon sink on the planet. The community of planktonic organisms involved in the removal of carbon from the upper layers of the ocean has now been described by an interdisciplinary team bringing together oceanographers, biologists and computer scientists, principally from the CNRS, UPMC, Nantes University, VIB, EMBL and CEA. This first overview of the network of species linked to the oceanic biological pump has revealed some new players as well as the main bacterial functions participating in the process. It was obtained by analyzing samples collected by the Tara Oceans expedition in the nutrient-poor regions that cover most of the oceans. The scientists have also shown that the presence of a small number of bacterial and viral genes predicts variation in carbon export from the upper layers of the ocean. These findings should enable researchers to better understand the sensitivity of this network to a changing ocean and to better predict the effects that climate change will have on the functioning of the biological carbon pump, which is a key process for sequestering carbon at global scale. Published on 10 February 2016 on the website of the journal Nature, this work highlights the important role played by plankton in the climate system. Wed, 10 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2687.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2687.htm A novel process for analyzing and visualizing sound has been designed by the Laboratoire Sciences et Technologies de la Musique et du Son (CNRS/IRCAM/French Ministry of Culture and Communication/UPMC). The Snail-Absolute Tuning is a patented CNRS technology¹ that offers novel ways of tuning a musical instrument, working on intonation, and visualizing music and sounds in real time. Beyond the marked scientific advance that it constitutes, this software program is innovative for musicians and all those who work with sound. It is suitable for both amateurs and professionals. It will be launched on January 21, 2016 and will be presented in Paris at the Salon Musicora on February 6-7, 2016² . Thu, 21 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2679.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2679.htm Ants collectively build nests whose size can reach several thousand times that of individual ants and whose architecture is sometimes highly complex. However, their ability to coordinate several thousand individuals when building their nests remains a mystery. To understand the mechanisms involved in this process, researchers from CNRS, Université Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier and Université de Nantes¹ combined behavioral analysis, 3D imaging and computational modeling techniques. Their work shows that ants self-organize by interacting with the structures they build thanks to the addition of a pheromone to their building material. This chemical signal controls their building activity locally and determines the shape of the nest. Its breakdown over time and due to environmental conditions also enables the ants to adapt the shape of their nests. This work is published in PNAS on 18 January 2016. Mon, 18 Jan 2016 21:00:00 +0100