The MATERIALS 2026 international conference will be held from November 16 to 20, 2026, in Grenoble (Isère). This event is organized by the French Materials Federation (FFM), which brings together 26 scientific and technical associations involved in materials. It is part of the MATERIALS series of conferences, which have been held every four years since 2002 and have established themselves as the must-attend French-language event for all academic and industrial players in the world of materials.

Philippe Marmottant, a CNRS researcher at LIPhy, will appear on the Big Bang program, hosted by Christophe Galfard on France Inter, to reveal the nature of a mysterious sound.

Certain microorganisms such as bacteria have been selected and optimized by evolution to survive and function in extreme conditions, such as high temperatures. A theoretical and experimental study reveals the origin of these adaptation mechanisms and, above all, their limitations.

During a period of drought, the content of water in plants decreases. If the effects are not easily visible with trees and other lignified trees, on the contrary, it is very visible on certain plants such as Spathiphyllum, a popular interior plant.

The ReMCoM project, led by Kirsten Martens at LIPhy, is one of the International Research Projects (IRP) supported by CNRS Physics in 2025.

The LACOSCOPE program was recognized in the ZEISS 2025 image competition, winning third prize for an exceptional image of plankton, revealing the complexity and beauty of lake ecosystems.

The school explores how living and synthetic active matter communicate, coordinate, and make decisions through physical, chemical and informational cues. Moving beyond contact and hydrodynamic interactions, the school focuses on chemical communication, quorum sensing, and informed active matter—three paradigms linking physics, chemistry, and biology. Emphasis is directed on how chemical signaling shapes collective motion, how cell populations self-organize through density-dependent feedback, and how agents can harness environmental information to optimize their behavior. By bridging active matter physics with biological regulation, the school aims to reveal new principles of organization in complex, living-like systems.

Jean Cappello (Institut Lumière Matière, Lyon)

Roxane Lestini and Nicolas Olivier (Laboratoire d'Optique et Biosciences, Palaiseau)

Marco Canepari (Optima)

Matteo Milani (ESPCI Paris)