Science & technology news in France

Promising Beam Circulates Around the Ring at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)! (Special Feature)

The community of particle physicists has been eagerly waiting for the first run of the proton beam in the heart of the outstanding 27-kilometer LHC instrument. On Wednesday, September 10, 2008 several seconds before the beam was injected into the rin ...

GOCE or the Amazing Map of the Earth's Gravity Field (Special Feature)

Next October 5 the GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) mission satellite will be launched. The goal of this first of four ESA missions dubbed Earth Explorer, which officially got off the ground in 1999, is to identify and ...

CinemaScience - Bringing Film et Science Closer Together (Special Feature)

Science gave birth to film that feeds off science, admittedly to stimulate men and women's imagination, but also to teach them and help them understand things... So why not continue the productive dialogue of film and science by creating a new space ...

Vintage Wine Bottles Authenticated by High Energy Ions (Innovation News)

After measuring cesium 137 radioactivity levels to test the age of wine, the glass in vintage wine bottles is now being tested by particle acceleration. Just like works of art, some wine is now undergoing advanced testing to establish its authenticit ...

CEA Valorisation Funds Three New Innovative Startups (Innovation News)

CEA Valorisation, a 100% CEA (French Atomic Energy Commission) subsidiary with a capital of 27 million euros, will be celebrating its tenth anniversary in 2009. Specialized in launching and funding businesses working with CEA technologies, CEA Valori ...

Visual Perception Influenced by Spontaneous Brain Activity (Live from the Labs)

The brain maintains a fluctuating background activity even when it is not stimulated. This is what functional MRI teaches us. For instance, the visual areas of the brain of an individual whose eyes are closed, in other words an individual who is not ...

A Molecular Imaging Platform in Alsace (Spotlight on the Regions)

The Alsace BioValley competitive cluster and GE Healthcare group have just signed a partnership agreement to create and develop a platform dedicated to research et development and translational medicine, which will also be a bridge between fundamental ...

MIEC 2008 - An Overview of Tomorrow's Materials (Event)

Next October 29 and 30 the Eighth MIEC (Matériaux Innovation Eco-Conception, materials, innovation and eco-design) Show will be held in Seyne-sur-Mer (Var département). Organized by CARMA (Centre d'Animation Régional en Matériaux Avancés, regional ce ...

Europe INNOVA 2008 - Driving Innovation in Europe (Event)

Next October 22 to 24, the Europe INNOVA Conference will be held at the Lyons Convention Center. Six hundred institutional officials, professionals and innovation experts from across the European Union are expected to attend. Every other year, the Eu ...

Fourth French-Israeli Symposium on the Brain (Event)

Next October 19, the Fourth French-Israeli Symposium on the brain called 'Genetics and the Brain: Is everything already decided at birth?' will beheld at the Palais Brongniart in Paris. Every year the Symposium, which is open to all, brings together ...

Françoise Gaill Head of the Department for the Environment and Sustainable Development at CNRS (Innovation News)

Françoise Gaill is Senior Researcher at the joint research unit 'Systemic, Adaptation, Evolution' (CNRS/IRD/MNHN/UPMC/Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris) that she has co-directed since its creation in 2003. She is also the scientific representative fo ...

FRM Backing Promising Research on Pain Treatment (Innovation News)

Medical science no longer considers it "normal" to suffer during a treatment or an operation. This - now central - parameter is taken into account for the setup of any therapy. However, although current medical science knows how to calm sharp pain, t ...

MICALIS - The New Center for Research in Food Microbiology and Human Health (Innovation News)

With a view to preserving consumer health, INRA has decided to set up a Center that will be covering all the fields ranging from microbe cells to biological procedures for food processing, including human digestive tube flora. MICALIS, which is locat ...

Virus Family Gets Bigger with Discovery of Virophage (Innovation News)

However, the latest arrival has completely upset commonly accepted ideas about the world of viruses. Dubbed Virophage, through analogy with bacteriophages that are bacteria virus, it was discovered in a giant virus called Mamavirus. The team of the R ...

StartingFrance or How to Develop French-German Trade (Innovation News)

Set up last spring, StartingFrance is a company specializing mainly in helping French software publishers get their business going in Germany. The purpose of the company is to provide publishers with support for successful business startup on the oth ...

OneGeology, the First Digital Geological Map of Our Globe (Innovation News)

"Make the best available geological map data worldwide web-accessible, at a scale of about 1:1 million, as geological survey contribution to the International Year of Planet Earth" is the mission statement of OneGeology. The concept emerged in 2006 a ...

Identification of a New Plant Hormone Inhibiting Shoot Branching (Live from the Labs)

A research team with scientists from Versailles INRA, CNRS/ Toulouse University, Queensland University (Australia), and Wageningen University (the Netherlands) has just identified a new plant hormone that inhibits shoot branching in plants. Some ten ...

Why Does an Insulating Material such as Lithium Iron Phosphate Conduct Electricity? (Live from the Labs)

Researchers at the Bordeaux Institute of Condensed Matter Chemistry (CNRS/Bordeaux University, ENSCPB) working with at team from the CEA-Liten Innovation Laboratory for New Energy Technologies and Nanomaterials have shed light on this paradox. Their ...

Gaining a Better Understanding of the Role of Nitrogen Monoxide in Plants (Spotlight on the Regions)

This year the Second International Plant Nitric Oxide Club Workshop, which was held last July 21 and 22 in Dijon, hosted some sixty French and foreign research scientists representing the main world teams working on nitrogen monoxide and its role in ...

The Challenges of Change for French Research: Discussing, Understanding, and Preparing the Future (Event)

Next October 1 and 2 a conference on 'The Challenges of Change for French Research: Discussing, Understanding and Preparing the Future' will be held at the Centre des Cordeliers in Paris. The purpose of the event is to provoke thought and foster disc ...

GMES 2008 Forum Serving the Environment (Event)

Next September 16 and 17 the 2008 GMES Forum will be held in Lille. The GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) is a European program collecting and publishing information on the environment and safety. Numerous French teams are involve ...

Is Fat a New Taste with Promising Applications? (Focus)

Admittedly, fat is a dietitian's worst enemy. However, food lipids supply certain fatty acids essential to human health, not to mention that they are the source of unforgettable taste pleasure. Understandably, the lipids are the focus of the Nutritio ...

Interministerial Fund Selects 8 System@tic Paris-Region Sponsored Projects (Cluster Update)

The official results for the Sixth Call for Projects of the Fonds Unique Interministériel (FUI, single interministerial fund) have just been announced. The Ile-de-France competitive cluster positioned "in the heart of the digital revolution" saw 8 of ...

Géologia 2008 - Geoscience in the Spotlight for the Centennial of ENSG (Education Outlook )

For the first time in France, a geoscience village covering more than 8,000 square meters will be open to the public from September 25 to 27, 2008. The event, which is being held as part of the International Year of the Planet Earth and which also fa ...

New Foresight Workshop Addressing Tomorrow's Biomass (Innovation News)

Dubbed VégA, the workshop is taking shape in a world dominated by three major challenges, viz., reducing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, developing fossil fuel substitutes, and the limited availability of renewable natural resources. Th ...

INRIA Involved in Semantic Web Takeoff (Innovation News)

The purpose of the semantic web is to create an environment where information is no longer merely stored but "understood" by computers, to provide users with what they are really looking for. Until now the semantic web was lacking a uniform language ...

French-Quebecois Cooperation for Nanotechnologies and Nanosystems (Innovation News)

Cooperation between France and Quebec has just led to the creation of the LN2 (Laboratory of Nanotechnologies and Nanosystems), the first French-Quebecois international partner laboratory (LIA, laboratoire International Associé). The initiative is ba ...

ATS Devises Solution to Fight Counterfeiting (Innovation News)

Counterfeiting, a world scourge, has kept growing and now affects most industries. The situation is so bad, that last year the organizers of an auction in the United States made a decision, so seldom seen elsewhere, to postpone an exceptional sale of ...

Promising Metals for Cancer Treatment (Live from the Lab)

Phosphorylation enzymes, which include the protein kinase CK2, play a critical role in controlling cell proliferation. Deregulated protein kinase activity is involved in numerous cancers, which has led to a recent surge in research on molecules that ...

What Impact does Replacing Soybean with Rapeseed Have on Cheese Quality? (Spotlight on the Regions)

The question is relevant because of the successive crises, viz., mad cow, dioxins, and recently GMO, which have led to blaming the quality and even the origins of livestock feed. A year ago, the Colzauprot project funded by the Comité Interprofession ...

Second International Symposium on Biomanufacturing (Event)

The satellite event at EuroBio 2008, the second international Symposium on Biomanufacturing, which will be held next October 6 at the Evry Genocentre, will focus on Productivity and Operational Excellence in Biomanufacturing. The first symposium in 2 ...

'Horizon 2012' at the Pierre and Marie Curie University (Event)

Now more than ever, humanity is addressing key issues. Climate change, aging, and sustainable development are among the issues fueling the most questions and anxieties. Science seems to be able to provide some of the answers. This has prompted Pierre ...

Health Food - An Inside Look at a Unique Master's Degree (Special Feature)

In 2007, Dr. Valérie Philippon set up Master's degree program in Health Food Marketing at the ESC Dijon Bourgogne group. Today the twelve students of the first Master class are attending their six-month internship, slated to end this fall. This is an ...

Mobile Telephony: Prylos Positioned on Convenience Service Market (Special Feature)

Next August Prylos, a business with a staff of fifteen, will be celebrating its fifth anniversary. Prylos was jointly founded by two former Phonevalley employees, HEC graduate Caroline Noublanche who headed the Sales et Marketing team and EPITA gradua ...

2008 Blue Planet Prize Goes to Claude Lorius (Innovation News)

The Asahi Glass Foundation created the Blue Planet prize in 1992, the year of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Every year, the award honors two people or organizations that make major scientific contributions to the environmental field. This year ...

Materials - Douai Ecole des Mines Acquires Latest Generation SEM (Innovation News)

For many years, the Douai Ecole des Mines (post graduate engineering school) has been conducting studies and research on material analysis and characterization, something which requires the perfect knowledge of the composition and microstructure of t ...

Sidérion Offering Customized Telephone Services (Innovation News)

Companies now face the challenge of combining customized customer relations with lower operational costs. To help them meet this challenge, Sidérion, a small business set up in May 2007, has developed a telephone service for automated and customized ...

Geothermal Energy - ADEME and BRGM Sign Agreement (Innovation News)

Geothermal energy is renewable and nonpolluting, it can be harnessed to heat and cool buildings, and in very special locations, such as the volcanic islands of French overseas départements, to produce electricity. Geothermal energy is also expected t ...

How Can Computer Speed Be Optimized? (Live from the Labs)

By controlling nanoscale strain in the processors. Until now, the strain was difficult to observe. Now, thanks to a new electron holography technique, which measures magnetic and electric fields, it is possible to map deformation in a crystal lattic ...

A Breakthrough with the Electric Control of a Molecular Magnet! (Live from the Labs)

Spintronics or spin-based electronics engineers electronics using the magnetic properties of electrons. The latter behave as small elementary magnets that rotate like a top around an axis, defining their spin. Thus, electrons transport information th ...

What is the Impact of Raw-Milk Cheese on Antibiotic Resistance? (Spotlight on the Regions)

This is the question that FROMSANTE wants to answer. Comité Interprofessionnel du Gruyère de Comté (CIGC, Interprofessional Committee of Comté Gruyère), INRA, ISBA Franche-Comté, Actilait and the Besançon University Hospital Center are involved in FR ...

Computer Science: Joseph Sifakis, First Frenchman to Receive the Turing Award (Special Report)

On Monday June 23, 2008, the CNRS and the French Academy of Technologies organized a ceremony in honor of the first French research scientist to receive the distinguished Turing Award, in other words the highest distinction in computing, considered t ...

Smaller and Fewer Antennae on Planes (Cluster Update)

Today more than forty antennae are installed on the A318, the smallest Airbus plane. The largest aircraft in the range, the A 380, has no fewer than 500 meters of cables to connect all its antennae. Smaller and fewer antennae is now a priority goal s ...

Harvest Project Goal: Extract Energy from Water Flow (Cluster Update)

Although most of the world's operational wind turbines use large horizontal turbines, the researchers at the CNRS Department of Information and Engineering Science and Technologies (ST21) working with four laboratories in the Rhone-Alps Region (LEGI, ...

A Bold Goal - Rethinking Engineers' Scope of Expertise (Education Outlook)

Clean transportation, using waste as a resource, desalting sea water, renewable energies are all major environmental challenges for our planet and will necessarily require new skills, expertise and talent. To meet the challenge, the Nantes Ecole Cent ...

The First Large Solar Plant in France Commissioned Soon (Innovations News)

Solar power has become EDF Energies Nouvelles' (EDF EN) second area of expansion after wind energy. The company (est. 1990) has already commissioned its first solar projects in Italy, Spain, and the United States would like to build 400MWp [1] with a ...

Greater Insight into Plants and their Uses Through Modeling (Innovations News)

The Agropolis Foundation, established in 2007 to support and promote a high-level research network in agricultural science and sustainable development and INRIA, a leading public research organization in computer science and control with a staff of 3 ...

New Infection Mechanism of Immune System Cells (Live from the Labs)

The new mechanism has been highlighted by the Research Unit on Emerging Infectious and Tropical Diseases (CNRS, IRD, University of the Mediterranean) headed by Didier Raoult working with Dutch and German scientists. The scientists have shown that Mim ...

Significant Impacts of Anthropogenic Warming (Live from the Labs)

Published in the May 15 issue of Nature, a study called "Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change" concludes that anthropogenic warming reported worldwide for some fifty years has already produced significant impact ...

The Origin of the Tea Scent of Roses Revealed (Live from the Labs)

Unlike numerous garden roses, recent varieties created for the cut flower market often have no scent. The varieties have been bred for their yield and vase life. However, in recent years scent has once again become an attractive feature for consumers ...

Hope for Treating the Most Infectious and Neglected Diseases (Live from the Labs)

With 12 million people infected, leishmaniasis is a serious, life-threatening illness, endemic in 88 countries. Chagas disease or South American trypanosomiasis affects 7 to 8 million people in 18 countries in Latin America, according to the World He ...

Using Stem Cells Brings New Hope for Bypass Surgery (Spotlight on the Regions)

The major discovery of LabPart, a young multidisciplinary research team at the Tours Medical School, brings new hope to patients with long arteries whose veins cannot be used for bypass surgery. Until now, synthetic prosthesis, mainly made out of Tef ...

Ocean Surface Topography: Jason-2 Soon in Orbit (Innovation News)

The launch of JASON-2, the outcome of a partnership involving CNES, NASA, EUMETSAT (European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites) and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), is scheduled for mid-June. The sa ...

Dijon University Hospital Center Integrates Technological Platform (Innovation News)

This move is very important because it is unprecedented in France. This is the first time that a technological investigation platform is integrated into a Centre d'Investigation Clinique Pluri thématique (CIC P, multi-thematic clinical investigation ...

Patent Filed for an Image Readjustment Procedure for Neurosurgery (Innovation News)

During an operation, neurosurgeons use a navigation system that works like a GPS, which marks the trajectory of each instrument, on an MRI of the patient's brain. However, because the image is recorded before the operation, it is static. It cannot be ...

MIAplex (TM) Detecting Several Biological Agents Simultaneously (Innovation News)

The Seventh International Conference on the Scientific and Clinical Applications of Magnetic Carriers in Vancouver, Canada, was held from May 21 to 24, 2008 at the University of British Colombia. At the event, Magnisense, a business engineering and m ...

GIOVE-B In Orbit: New Stage for Galileo Deployment (Innovation News)

Two years after the success of GIOVE-A, GIOVE-B will continue the demonstration phase for the critical technologies that will be aboard the navigation payload of the future operational satellites for Galileo, the European satellite navigation system ...

Using Plasma for Waste Reclamation in the Perfume Industry (Cluster Update)

Not only does the current practice of incinerating the waste from the perfume industry have a financial cost, but an environmental one as well. What is the answer? Using plasma for waste reclamation, by producing hydrogen or even synthetic fuels. Thi ...

IRD and Dakar University Set Up a Business Incubator (Innovation News)

Last December the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) and the Dakar Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD) decided to share the Hann campus. Today the two establishment have taken their collaboration a step further by signing two agreements ...

New Generation Radar for Rain Detection Tested in the Var (Innovation News)

Rain intensity during a rainfall has to be measured if flash floods are to be anticipated and any flood risks managed. In the nineties, new radar technologies detecting rain and measuring the cumulation of rainfalls in real time have supplemented sta ...

A Promising Fungus for Second Generation Biofuels (Live from the Labs)

Trichoderma reesei is the name of a filamentous fungus that was discovered during World War Two in the South Pacific where it was damaging American military equipment and defeating any attempt at protecting the equipment with cotton cloth. The secret ...

Evolution of Greenhouse Gases Over the Last 800,000 Years (Live from the Labs)

For the first time, French scientists at two world renowned laboratories, LGGE-OSUG [1] and LSCE-IPSL [2] working with several international partners, the Physics Institute and Oeschger Center on climate research of the University of Bern, Switzerlan ...

Sensina Using Sensory Analysis to Break Into the Chinese Market (Spotlight on the Regions)

Any industry operator who wants to sell products abroad must be knowledgeable about the taste preferences of the targeted population. This is the only approach enabling a businesses to adjust the taste of its product to local demand, if needed. For i ...

First Innovation Star Goes to TxCell, a Biotech Company (Spotlight on the Regions)

Team Côte d'Azur, the agency for economic development, organized the first Cross'Innov Convention, the international business forum, at Sophia Antipolis last April 24 and 25. At the event, an American jury of prime innovation movers, Pepper Hamilton, ...

From Nuclear Engineering to Biomedical Engineering - The Transformation of the Fontenay-aux-Roses Center (Special Feature)

A 25-acre plot of land about 5 kilometers from Paris, in the little town of Fontenay-aux-Roses is where the great nuclear power adventure unfolded. Indeed, all French nuclear activities were born at the historic center of the French Atomic Energy Com ...

Total Immersion Industrializing Augmented Reality (Special Feature)

The story of Total Immersion began in 1999. That was when Bruno Uzzan, a finance specialist who was then working for an audit firm, and Valentin Lefèvre, then in charge of software development in the field of real-time computer images for simulators ...

Hélion - A Small Business at the Hub of the Hydrogen Network (Special Feature)

Since January 2007, Hélion has been belonged to AREVA Group Renewable Energy Business Unit , which brings together three activities (hydrogen/fuel cells, biomass and wind power). Set up in March 2001 and located in Aix-en-Provence, Hélion specializes ...

World First for TELECOM Bretagne - A 5 Gigabyte-per-second Turbo Decoder Circuit (Cluster Update)

Maximum rate reached by this kind of turbo decoder is only at 1 gigabyte per second. However, researchers at TELECOM Bretagne have just engineered a 5 gigabyte-per-second turbo decoder, a world first, after twelve years of studies on turbo codes by t ...

BRGM Involved in Mapping World First (Innovation News)

OneGeology, the flagship project for the International Year of the Planet, will be drawing up the interactive digital geological map of the world! The threefold goal is to make currently available geological maps accessible and readable on the Web, r ...

MetaHIT Project for Human Intestinal Flora Sequencing Gets Off the Ground (Innovation News)

Last April 11, the European project called Metagenomics of the Human Intestinal Tract (MetaHIT) was officially launched. It will serve to characterize the genes and bacterial functions of intestinal flora and study the implications of the genome on d ...

RFID Technology Accessible to Small Businesses (Live from the Labs)

This is the goal set for Aspire, a European project launched last January. Aspire endowed with a 4.7 million-euro European grant over a three-year period brings together some ten partners, including UAEPME (European Association of Craft, Small and Me ...

Improving Tumor Cell Detection (Live from the Labs)

The medical imaging of tumor cells relies on the fluorescence emitted by chemical groups that can absorb photon energy. However, one-photon imaging that excites molecules called fluorescent dyes in visible ultraviolet light is still not very precise. ...

An Amazing 'Green' Refinery called Morgane (Spotlight on the Regions)

Olmix, which was created by Hervé Balusson in 1995, is a business specialized in additive preparation. Early on, Olmix focused its strategy on the development of natural clay based additives that were soon combined with green algae. The R et D Departm ...

InNaBioSanté Selects Five Projects for the Fight Against Cancer (Special Feature)

The vocation of InNaBioSanté, a public interest foundation, is to develop cancer research by rolling out a range of actions, with a focus on issuing calls for national and international projects, to support or co-fund R et D programs. For this purpose ...

Two Accredited Projects for AGRIMIP INNOVATION (Cluster Update)

For the sixth call for projects issued by the Fonds Unique Interministériel (FUI, single interministerial fund), two projects from the young AGRIMIP INNOVATION competitive cluster, which received accreditation in July 2007, were retained. They are ca ...

An 'Artificial Mouth' for Studying Mouth Mechanisms In Vitro (Cluster Update)

Christian Salles's team at the FLaVIC (Consumer Flavor Vision and Behavior) Joint Research Unit has been studying mouth mechanisms, which are involved in the perception of flavors, for several years. Two research approaches are available to researche ...

Fuels Cells Aboard a Commercial Aircraft (Innovation News)

Last February, the fuel cell system developed by Airbus and Michelin was tested on the A320 test plane belonging to DLR, the German Aerospace Center. The European plane-maker has been working on fuel cell technology jointly with Michelin, Liebherr Ae ...

Satellite Tracking Wild and Domestic Camel Herds (Innovation News)

Since its setup in 1986, CLS has been the exclusive operator of the Argos satellite tracking system. The system can track our planet's great migratory animals as well as all kinds of herds. Wild camels in Australia as well as domestic camel herds in ...

GIOVE-B - A New Building Block for the Galileo System Soon in Orbit (Innovation News)

The GIOVE-B Satellite will be launched next April 27. Along with the GIOVE-A, which was launched in 2005, it will continue in-orbit validation of the technologies to ensure the success of Galileo, Europe's global navigation satellite system. The GIOV ...

Two Different Brain Mechanisms Involved in Attention and Consciousness (Live from the Labs)

It is widely recognized that what we consciously see is determined by what we pay attention to. However, research conducted by a research team at the Cognitive Neuroscience and Brain Imaging Laboratory (LENA) (research results published on March 5 on ...

Repairing a Trauma Damaged Brain (Live from the Labs)

Brain injury in adults can cause irreparable long-term physical and cognitive damage. However, motor and spatial functions can be recovered if undamaged neurons are stimulated to create new innervation. Researchers have previously shown - with an inj ...

France and Korea Set Up a New International Associated Laboratory (Live from the Labs)

The International Associated Laboratory (IAL) France-Korea Particle Physics Laboratory (FKPPL) is the second IAL set up between French and Korean research establishments and third laboratory of its kind involving IN2P3-CNRS and Asian laboratories. Th ...

Solar Event - Flagship Trade Fair on Solar Power (Spotlight on the Regions)

Solar Event will be held at the Savoie Technolac, the Technology Park dedicated to solar power and green industries, on the banks of the Bourget Lake, France's largest natural lake. The event will bring together professionals from the building trade ...

Outstanding Seminar on New Generation Robots (Events)

Next April 23 an outstanding event on new generation robots will be held at the Maison de la Chimie, in Paris. The Municipality of Osaka and the Ile-de-France competitive cluster Cap Digital are jointly organizing the event, which targets industry op ...

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