On October 5,2018 in Seoul,CNRS and Sorbonne University,together with Ewha Womans University and Yonsei University,their two South Korean partners,inaugurated 2B-FUEL,an International Joint Unit(UMI)in materials chemistry and organic electronics.The International Joint Unit(UMI)"Building Blocks for FUture ELectronics",or 2B-FUEL,was inaugurated on October 5,2018 by Antoine Petit,Chairman and CEO of CNRS,and Professor Wonyong Lee,Vice-President of Research Affairs at Yonsei University.Initiated by Professors Eunkyoung Kim(Yonsei University),Jeong Won Wu(Ewha Womans University)and André-Jean Attias(Sorbonne University),the UMI carries out research on functional materials for optics and electronics as well as systems.The project aims to develop the basic building blocks of tomorrow‘s electronics,which could lead to novel 3D printable organic electronics systems whose properties will be tested by researchers in the UMI.The interest of such an approach in South Korea is obvious,given the presence there of key industrial players in the field.In France,the UMI has a‘mirror‘lab,the Institut Parisien de Chimie Moléculaire(CNRS/Sorbonne Université),in Paris,where Attias works.Cooperation between France and South Korea on these research topics is along-standing tradition.After several years of cooperation,most of the founding members of the 2BFuel UMI had already set up in 2010 an International Research Network(GDRI)on materials for optics and electronics,dubbed FUN MOOD.The GDRI has organised international workshops and co-organised winter schools and student exchanges,and has led to some thirty joint publications.Two years earlier,France and South Korea had already established the CNRS-Ewha Research Centre(CERC)on the campus of Ewha Womans University in Seoul.A recent partnership between FUN MOOD and CERC led to the development at Ewha Womans University of systems and research into ultrafast dynamics using apump-probe technique.The vitality of this collaboration and the quality of its work have demonstrated its value and the need to consolidate it within an International Joint Unit,reinforced by the addition of new partners. 查看详细>>

The world‘s biggest colony of king penguins is found in the National Nature Reserve of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands(TAAF).Using high-resolution satellite images,researchers from the ChizéCentre for Biological Studies(CNRS/University of La Rochelle)1 have detected amassive 88%reduction in the size of the penguin colony,located onÎle aux Cochons,in theÎles Crozet archipelago.The causes of the colony‘s collapse remain amystery but may be environmental.These findings are published in Antarctic Science(July 25).Known since the 1960s,the colony of king penguins(Aptenodytes patagonicus)onÎle aux Cochons,in the southern Indian Ocean,had the distinction of being the world‘s biggest colony of king penguins and second biggest colony of all penguins.However,due to its isolation and inaccessibility,no new estimates of its size were made over the past decades.The Chizéteam used high-resolution satellite images to measure changes in the size of the colony since the island was last visited by acrew of scientists(1982).At the time,the colony included 500,000 breeding pairs and consisted of over two million penguins.To calculate the area occupied by the colony at different times between 1960 and the present,the researchers studied changes in its contours over the years.They found that the colony has shrunk,yielding its territory to encroaching vegetation.Photographs taken from ahelicopter during the Antarctic Circumpolar Expedition confirm that the colony‘s penguin population has plummeted.Data show that the decline began in the late 1990s,coinciding with amajor climatic event in the Southern Ocean related to El Niño.This event temporarily affected the foraging capacities of another colony 100 km fromÎle aux Cochons,causing it to dwindle.The same process may be responsible for the fate of theÎle aux Cochons colony.Its size may also subject it to density-dependent effects.That is,the larger the population,the fiercer the competition between individuals,slowing the growth of all members of the group.The repercussions of lack of food are thus amplified and can trigger an unprecedented rapid and drastic drop in numbers,especially following aclimatic event like the one at the end of the 1990s.Disease is another hypothesis entertained.Avian cholera is currently ravaging populations of seabirds on other islands in the Indian Ocean,like the albatross ofÎle Amsterdam and the penguins of Marion Island.Still,none of these possibilities seems to offer asatisfactory explanation for adecline of the magnitude observed onÎle aux Cochons.Field studies led by CNRS researchers,with support from the French Polar Institute(IPEV),and in close partnership with TAAF nature reserve staff,should be getting under way shortly to verify initial conclusions drawn from the satellite images. 查看详细>>

Observations made with the Very Large Telescope(VLT)of the European Southern Observatory(ESO)have,for the first time,detected the effects of general relativity predicted by Einstein,in the movement of astar passing into the intense gravitational field of Sagittarius A*,a massive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way.These results were obtained by the GRAVITY consortium1,led by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics(MPE)in Germany and also involving the CNRS,the Paris Observatory(PSL),the UniversitéGrenoble-Alpes and several French universities.These findings,the culmination of 26 years of observations using telescopes at the ESO in Chile,were published by the GRAVITY consortium on 26 July 2018 in Astronomy&Astrophysics.Sagittarius A*(Sgr A*)sits at the centre of our galaxy,26,000 light-years from Earth.This black hole,which has amass 4million times that of the sun,is surrounded by astar cluster–the Sstars–which reach mind-boggling speeds when they approach the hole.General relativity describes the effects of matter on the movement of stars,and more specifically,in this case,the effects of ablack hole on the stars surrounding it.The stars of Sgr A*,located in the Milky Way‘s most powerful gravitational field,are aperfect laboratory in which to test Einstein‘s general theory of relativity.Astronomers used three VLTs–NACO,SINFONI,and more recently GRAVITY–to follow one particular star in the Sgr A*system–S2–before and after it passed close to the black hole on 19 May 2018.GRAVITY achieved aresolution of 50 microarcseconds:the angle at which atennis ball placed on the moon would be visible from Earth.This accuracy made it possible to detect the hour-by-hour movement of S2 as close as possible to the black hole.When S2 passed by Sgr A*at adistance just 120 times that of the Earth from the Sun,it reached an orbital velocity of 8000 km/s:2.7%of the speed of light.These extreme conditions suffice for the S2 star to be subjected to the effects of general relativity.By combining previous measurements made using NACO and SINFONI with GRAVITY‘s precision on the position of S2,astronomers were able to detect the gravitational redshift which Einstein predicted.Redshift affects light sources that are in agravitational field;in this case,the black hole.The phenomenon produces ashift in wavelength toward the red part of the spectrum which is detected by ameasuring instrument.This is the first time the effect has been measured in the gravitational field of ablack hole.These results are perfectly in line with the theory of general relativity(and not explained by Newton‘s theory,which excludes such ashift).They are amajor breakthrough towards better understanding the effects of intense gravitational fields.Shifts in the trajectory of S2 due to gravity will be detected in afew months,and could yield information on mass distribution around the black hole. 查看详细>>