Honeybees are well-known for their remarkable cognitive abilities. They rely on their learning capacities to better identify the most profitable flowers. Beyond classical associative learning faculties, the bees were shown to possess an unexpected sense for number. As an example, they can sort numbers in a linear scale including a concept of zero as the lowest quantity.

A recent study, led by Bruno GUIARD, provides experimental evidence that metformin, an oral anti diabetic, produces anxiolytic and antidepressant-like effects in insulin-resistant mice.

In 2016, CNRS scientists demonstrated that the slime mould Physarum polycephalum, a single-cell organism without a nervous system, could learn to no longer fear a harmless but aversive substance and could transmit this knowledge to a fellow slime mould. In a new study, a team from CNRS and the Université Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier has shown what might support this memory and in fact it could be the aversive substance itself! These results were published in a special issue of the Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society B on 22 April 2019.

Termite nests have been widely studied as effective examples for ventilation and thermoregulation.