http://www.cnrs.fr Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique fr CNRS Sun, 28 Jun 2026 21:49:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3174.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3174.htm In 2016, researchers at CNRS (members of TSE – Université Toulouse Capitole), MIT, Harvard University and the University of British Columbia launched the “Moral Machine” online platform to ask users about moral dilemmas facing us in the development of autonomous vehicles. The researchers gathered 40 million decisions from millions of web users worldwide. The results show global moral preferences that may guide decision makers and companies in the future. The analysis of this data was published in Nature on October 24, 2018. Wed, 24 Oct 2018 19:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3158.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3158.htm An international research group has published the conclusions of a study focused on juvenile delinquency among ethnic and religious minorities from five different Western countries. Through the prism of delinquency, the study examines the social integration of minorities and concludes that interaction with public institutions and the living conditions of these young people contribute to different patterns of integration depending on the country. Researchers from the PACTE research unit (CNRS/Sciences Po Grenoble/University Grenoble Alpes) and colleagues published their results in September 2018 in the form of a book (Springer publishing). Mon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3156.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3156.htm The CNRS Gold Medal, France's highest scientific distinction, has been awarded this year to the philosopher and philologist Barbara Cassin, senior researcher emeritus at the CNRS and member of the Académie française. This award, which will be presented in Paris on November 29, 2018, crowns a body of work marked by the power of words and language as well as translation as a way of “making do” with cultural differences, one that has constantly sought to connect contemporary issues with specialized research on the texts of Greek antiquity. Her research represents an exceptional contribution to the philosophy of language from both a historical and practical perspective, and is the work of a committed researcher, notably with respect to multilingualism. Thu, 27 Sep 2018 11:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3154.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3154.htm At the foot of the hill on which sits the ancient city of Cumae, in the region of Naples, Priscilla Munzi, CNRS researcher at the Jean Bérard Centre (CNRS-EFR), and Jean-Pierre Brun, professor at the Collège de France, are exploring a Roman-era necropolis. They now reveal the latest discovery to surface in the archaeological dig they have led since 2001: a painted tomb from the 2nd century B.C. In excellent condition, the tomb depicts a banquet scene, fixed by pigments. Tue, 25 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3153.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3153.htm CNRS and EHESS researchers analyzed nearly 60 million political tweets posted during the 2017 presidential election in France. They noted that fake news flagged by the Le Monde Decodex fact-checking website accounted for only 0.1% of all Twitter content, and that 73% of the bogus information was spread by two political communities. Their findings are published in PLOS ONE (September 19, 2018). Wed, 19 Sep 2018 20:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3141.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3141.htm Showcased in museums the world over, Byzantine ceramics are the vestiges of an ancient empire that dominated the Mediterranean region for nearly ten centuries. One CNRS researcher¹, in cooperation with Greek colleagues², has focused her attention on a widely disseminated style of ceramics called the “main Middle Byzantine Production,” found in all four corners of the Mediterranean. Its origins had remained a mystery until these scientists traced it back to Chalcis (Khalkís), the former port of Thebes. They determined that the town had been a maritime hub from which goods were shipped to Marseille, Acre (in modern-day Israel), and beyond—as far as Chersonesus in Crimea. The team's findings have just been published online by the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. Wed, 18 Jul 2018 12:00:00 +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/3131.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3131.htm Does the arrival of asylum seekers lead to a deterioration in the economic performance and public finances of the European countries that host them? The answer is no, according to economists from the CNRS, Clermont-Auvergne University, and Paris-Nanterre University,¹ who have estimated a dynamic statistical model based on thirty years of data from fifteen countries in Western Europe. On the contrary, the economic impact tends to be positive as a proportion of the asylum seekers become permanent residents. This study is published in Science Advances on June 20, 2018. Wed, 20 Jun 2018 20:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3095.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3095.htm The European Research Council (ERC) has announced the recipients of its 2017 Advanced Grants, awarded to experienced male and female researchers well known in their fields. In total, across all disciplines, 269 projects were selected, including 34 hosted in France. With its 15 winners, the CNRS leads the pack: 15% of the candidates it hosts were accepted, while the success rate for all European candidates combined was 12%. Mon, 09 Apr 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/3069.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3069.htm The archaeological site of Sedeinga is located in Sudan, a hundred kilometers to the north of the third cataract of the Nile, on the river's western shore. Known especially for being home to the ruins of the Egyptian temple of Queen Tiye, the royal wife of Amenhotep III, the site also includes a large necropolis containing sepulchers dating from the kingdoms of Napata and Mereo (seventh century BCE–fourth century CE), a civilization¹ mixing local traditions and Egyptian influences. Tombs, steles, and lintels have just been unearthed by an international team led by researchers from the CNRS and Sorbonne Université as part of the French Section of Sudan's Directorate of Antiquities, co-funded by the CNRS and the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs.² They represent one of the largest collections of Meroitic inscriptions, the oldest language of black Africa currently known. Mon, 05 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3065.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3065.htm Risk taking, cooperation and competition are the ingredients for entrepreneurial success, which CNRS and ESCP Europe (http://www.escpeurope.eu/) researchers¹ have been looking into. They have decoded the strategy for conquering a new market space – crowdlending – initiated between 2014 and 2016 by an entrepreneur, who created a competition-free niche while contributing to implementing long-term regulations on crowdlending in France. This two-tiered strategy could serve for other emerging sectors, such as cryptocurrencies. This work was published on March 1, 2018 in Gérer et Comprendre. Thu, 01 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3063.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3063.htm Botai horses were tamed in Kazakhstan 5,500 years ago and thought to be the ancestors of today's domesticated horses . . . until a team led by researchers from the CNRS and Université Toulouse III–Paul Sabatier sequenced their genome. Their findings published on 22 February 2018 in Science are startling: these equids are the progenitors not of the modern domesticated horse, but rather of Przewalski's horses—previously presumed wild! Thu, 22 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3061.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3061.htm At a remarkable site in northwest Saudi Arabia, a CNRS archaeologist¹ and colleagues from the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTH) have discovered camelid sculptures unlike any others in the region. They are thought to date back to the first centuries BC or AD.² The find sheds new light on the evolution of rock art in the Arabian Peninsula and is the subject of an article published in Antiquity (February 2018). Tue, 13 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +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/3043.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3043.htm The discovery of more than a thousand sites in Syria has revised our understanding of the settlement of the steppes during all periods in the history of the Near East. Recently, analysis of aerial and satellite images has enabled the discovery of a vast structured surveillance and communication network dating from the Middle Bronze Age (2nd millennium BCE). This research, led by researchers from the Archéorient laboratory (Environnements et sociétés de l'Orient ancien – CNRS/Université Lumière Lyon 2) and the Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums of Syria, is published in the journal Paléorient on December 19, 2017. Thu, 21 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3039.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3039.htm You may already be surprised to hear there are iron objects dating back to the Bronze Age, but their meteorite origin is even more astonishing. Though meteorites had already been recognized as one source of this metal, the scientific community couldn't determine whether they accounted for most or simply a few Bronze Age iron artifacts. Albert Jambon, as part of his work at the Institut de minéralogie, de physique des matériaux et de cosmochimie (CNRS / UPMC / IRD / Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle),¹ has demonstrated that iron used during the Bronze Age is always meteoric and he explained how this practice was abandoned during the Iron Age. His work is published in the December 2017 issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science. Fri, 01 Dec 2017 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/3031.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3031.htm To solve mysteries about ancient works or authenticate heritage objects, specialists often need support from science. Since 1988, AGLAÉ has been installed at the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France (C2RMF, Palais du Louvre). It is the only particle accelerator in the world that is exclusively dedicated to studying heritage objects. Today, the “New AGLAɔ installation improves that performance: automates the beam line, optimizes chemical imaging on the micrometer scale, and enables 24-hour analysis. In association with CNRS, the project is supported by the Ministry of Culture, Investissements d'Avenir, and the city of Paris. The new AGLAÉ was inaugurated on November 23, 2017 by Françoise Nyssen, Minister of Culture and Frédérique Vidal, Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation. Thu, 23 Nov 2017 11:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3025.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3025.htm In mid-September, a large treasure was unearthed during a dig at the Abbey of Cluny, in the French department of Saône-et-Loire: 2,200 silver deniers and oboles, 21 Islamic gold dinars, a signet ring,1 and other objects made of gold. Never before has such a large cache of silver deniers been discovered. Nor have gold coins from Arab lands, silver deniers, and a signet ring ever been found hoarded together within a single, enclosed complex. Anne Baud, an academic at the Université Lumière Lyon 2, and Anne Flammin, a CNRS engineer—both from the Laboratoire Archéologie et Archéométrie (CNRS / Université Lumière Lyon 2 / Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University)—led the archaeological investigation, in collaboration with a team of 9 students from the Université Lumière Lyon 2 and researchers from the Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée Jean Pouilloux (CNRS / Université Lumière Lyon 2). Tue, 14 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3019.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3019.htm How are we affected by other peoples' opinions? To answer this question, scientists¹ at the CNRS, Inra and Université Toulouse 1 Capitole conducted a study in France and Japan, quantifying this impact on our decisions. They identified five behaviors common to both countries: a majority of subjects make a compromise between their opinion and that of others (59% of people in France), some hold to their opinion (29% in France), whereas others follow faithfully, amplify or contradict the information they receive. The study also shows how social information can help a group collectively improve its performance and the precision of its estimates. From this analysis, a model has been developed that reproduces the results of the study and predicts the performance of a group depending on the amount and quality of information exchanged between its members. The long-term goal would be to develop algorithms for decision-making support tools. The results of this study were published on November 6, 2017 in PNAS. Tue, 07 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3017.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3017.htm New genetic data bear witness to transatlantic ties severed by slavery and triangular trade. Scientists¹ from the Anthropologie Moléculaire et Imagerie de Synthèse (CNRS/Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier/Paris Descartes University) and Ecological Anthropology and Ethnobiology (CNRS/MNHN) research units have shown that members of Maroon communities in South America - formed over four centuries ago by Africans who escaped slavery - have remarkably preserved their African genetic heritage (98%). In contrast, the same cannot be said for African-descendants from Brazil and Colombia. The researchers' findings are published in the American Journal of Human Genetics (November 2, 2017). Thu, 02 Nov 2017 17:00:00 +0100 http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3015.htm http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/3015.htm How do children learn their mother tongue? This question has been the subject of few studies conducted outside of industrialized countries. At the Laboratoire de sciences cognitives et psycholinguistique (CNRS/ENS/EHESS), specialists in language development in children have studied a traditional population in the Bolivian Amazon, the Tsimane¹, in partnership with bio-anthropologists from Toulouse 1 Capitole University² and the University of California at Santa Barbara. Their study, published on November 2, 2017 in the journal Child Development, shows that, on average, less than one minute per hour is spent talking to children under the age of four. This is up to ten times less than for children of the same age in industrialized countries. This observation should prompt us to conduct more studies of this kind in various cultures in order to verify if the process of learning a mother tongue is universal. Thu, 02 Nov 2017 05:01:00 +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