Imagining and preparing for the future in order to guide research and public policy is the very purpose of foresight. A perilous exercise, scientists point out. And one that requires dialogue between disciplines, along with solid models accounting for multiple uncertainties.
In 2015, the historic Paris Agreement, signed by 195 countries, sought to limit global warming to 2 °C. Ten years later, the results have yet to materialize, raising questions regarding the effectiveness of COP meetings, major climate gatherings whose thirtieth edition kicks off Monday in Brazil.
Given that animals are sentient, as established by recent research, what is their attitude towards death? In a recently-published book, the biologist Emmanuelle Pouydebat sheds light on the complex emotions and behaviours of various species in this situation.
In 2015, the historic Paris Agreement, signed by 195 countries, sought to limit global warming to 2 °C. Ten years later, the results have yet to materialize, raising questions regarding the effectiveness of COP meetings, major climate gatherings whose thirtieth edition kicks off Monday in Brazil.
On 14 September, 2015, the international LIGO/Virgo collaboration detected the very first gravitational wave signal, a tiny distortion of spacetime predicted by Einstein, in this case produced by the merger of two black holes. The CNRS astrophysicist Marie-Anne Bizouard explains how this discovery has opened up a new window on the Universe.
In the French-Belgian film "The Residence", recently released in a number of European countries and Brazil, a novelist interacts with an artificial intelligence system. The robotics researcher Catherine Pélachaud explains how a seemingly personal but actually one-way relationship can arise between humans and AI.
In August 2025, the Geneva Summit on plastic pollution once again failed to reach agreement on an international treaty, due in particular to a lack of consensus over recycling and its limits. This issue was the subject of a recent collective scientific assessment led by the CNRS and the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE).
The huge fires that burn down millions of hectares of forest in North America every year have an impact on the other side of the Atlantic. Plumes of smoke and various other pollutants have been detected in the skies over France and beyond, explains the atmospheric scientist Stéphane Sauvage.
The myth of Africa as a wild, enchanting continent conceals a reality of nature under glass orchestrated by Western experts, to the detriment of local populations. The historian Guillaume Blanc recounts this little-known story.
