For the last interview of the first season, Arthur meets with Nicolas Bost, PhD, a graduate of the University of Orléans, who takes him into the heart of a meteorite impact crater, searching for traces of life similar to what could have appeared on the planet Mars.

Citizen science is a research method that is growing rapidly. It consists of letting citizens participate in research projects. In its report “Collaborative participation as a mode of knowledge production”, the French association Fondation Sciences Citoyennes (“Citizen Science Foundation”) presented public participation in scientific research as a way to help science face societal challenges.

This week, we invite you to travel with us from backstage at a lab at Pasteur, into space and its microgravity.

WAX Science is a young French association created by Aude Bernheim and Flora Vincent, two students from AgroParisTech (Paris Institute of Technology for Life, Food and Environmental Science) and the CRI (Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity). It aims at enhancing the image of science by breaking down stereotypes. To do so, a team composed mostly of volunteers was mobilized to develop a collaborative platform that launched just yesterday, May 15^th. Attractive visuals, some lively content, the promotion of its participants and a variety of formats are all important elements of this new approach to science, devoted to stimulating curiosity about science in young people.

For the second to last interview of the season, our (very) clumsy journalism intern Arthur has the great opportunity to visit Novespace, the only European company carrying out zero gravity flights. In the Airbus A300 ZERO-G, he meets with Mouhannad Nassouri, a PhD student whose experiments on combustion take place in weightlessness.

• Human exploration of Mars is already on the agenda for our space agencies. At the second to last session of the season for Mardis de l’espace (Space Tuesdays), two engineers will focus on the technological perspectives for spacecraft propulsion and prove that this project is not merely a matter of science fiction.

When epidemic strikes, the Laboratory for Urgent Response to Biological Threats (CIBU) at the Institut Pasteur goes into overdrive, working round the clock to identify the infectious agent at the start of the phenomenon. From SARS to H1N1 to the new coronavirus, in this video, CIBU’s director Jean-Claude Manuguerra explains how the team functions to fulfill its public health mission when faced with an unidentified agent causing disease.

Arthur has brought us inside some of the oldest scientific research institutions in Paris: first, the Institut Pasteur, and now, the National Museum of Natural History. This is where he meets with James Bowers, a British PhD candidate studying in France who works on metabolism and ageing.