With the Académie des Sciences in 2015

AVEC L’ACADÉMIE DES SCIENCES

2015

Sexual Dimorphism

Each cell of our organs bears the signature of our sex (XX or XY sex

chromosomes). The session discussed first the fundamental aspects

of sexual dimorphism – "What benefits did evolution provide to sexual

beings?" – and then its clinical aspects – "What are the specific

mechanisms, whether genetic, hormonal or epigenetic, which may

explain differences in vulnerability to a number of pathologies, in

particular in the case of oncology and psychiatry?" The session also

discussed differences in medical care for men and women, using the

example of cardiovascular diseases. It concluded on the training needs

of health professionals (“

Dimorphisme sexuel

”, 1 December 2015

Académie des Sciences-Académie Nationale de Médecine Joint Session

Photography

The year 2015 marked the 250

anniversary of Nicephore Niepce’s birth. The session first recalled the "multiple inventions of

photography". It also highlighted the role of science in the progress of photography, whether regarding the chemistry of silver

photography or, more recently, algorithmics and computer science. The session also, and particularly through the description of the

physiology of the eye and the process of visual perception, insisted that while "a camera looks, the eye sees". This joint session with

the Académie des Beaux-Arts, finally, was an opportunity to confront scientific experiments and those carried out by photographers

and painters (“

Colloque sur la photographie

”, 15 December 2015

Académie des Sciences-Académie des Beaux-Arts Joint Session

National and International Colloquia

Human Evolution: from Genes to Culture

To know the human being implies to consider as

much their biology as their culture. Few meetings

have provided such an opportunity, unlike the delec-

table humanist debates that flourished in the eigh-

teenth century. This partitioning may be required

for the sake of documentation but the transversal

perspective brings something else. This symposium

aimed at grasping human nature through its various

components, which are often too much separated

from one another (“

L’évolution humaine: des gènes

à la culture”

, 12-13 May 2015