White dwarfs are the extremely dense, compact remnants of stars that have ended their lives, and are at the origin of tremendous explosions known as novae. This phenomenon (not to be confused with supernovae, which destroy the star) is thought to be the source of the excess lithium in the Universe.
Based in Namibia, the H.E.S.S. telescope array monitors the showers of particles produced when the highest-energy cosmic rays ever observed in the Universe impact the Earth's atmosphere.
Researchers have developed the world’s first index evaluating prison conditions, attesting to the enforcement – or more often the violation – of the fundamental rights of inmates. The results for twelve countries or nations, including France, are available online.
Are the dinosaurs in “Jurassic Park” realistic? How does the film franchise explore the impact and applications of science? These are some of the topics addressed in a book published last autumn, as explained by two of its authors, Jean-Sébastien Steyer and Jean-Philippe Uzan.
Ten years after the terrorist attack against Charlie Hebdo, the legal expert Thomas Hochmann points out the difficulty of regulating freedom of expression without veering into censorship, especially in the media.
Astronomical observatories can yield exceptional discoveries, but they are sometimes built with little regard for the environment and local people, sparking public opposition. The sociologist and historian Pascal Marichalar takes a closer look at these issues, drawing on his research in Hawaii.
As a remake of the 1922 film Nosferatu was recently released, the sociologist Arnaud Esquerre takes a new look at the vampire – a figure that, from its emergence in the 18th century to the present day, has questioned the organisation between the dead and the living.
Light, soft, resistant, deformable, and sometimes tacky, knitted fabric is not just an everyday object, it is also a metamaterial whose extraordinary properties are of great interest to physicists.
While very useful in ecosystems, mosquitoes tend to ruin the lives of humans. A CNRS team has even recently calculated how much these dipterans cost society, primarily due to the diseases they transmit.
At a ceremony held in Paris recenlty, the biologist Edith Heard was handed the CNRS Gold Medal, one of the most prestigious French scientific distinctions, for her outstanding research on epigenetics and X-chromosome inactivation.
