Azole resistance in Aspergillus is one of the emerging public health concerns, listed as a WHO priority and suited to an integrated One Health approach. Selective pressure due to the use of azole pesticides in agriculture being incriminated, identification of clinical and environmental resistance patterns, and a greater understanding of the factors driving this resistance are urgently needed in order to issue recommendations to the stakeholders. The multidisciplinary AspergillusOne-health project strengthened with model and innovative methodologies (WGS, genotyping, MALDI typing, metabarcoding, AI) aims to identify hotspots as possible sources for selection of azole-resistance in the environment, after the detection of azole-resistant Aspergillus in patients and patiens's home, avian facilities, the environment (farming and sawmills), and detection of the azole fungicides in soil and air. The role of resistance trait on Aspergillus fitness cost will be investigated, using environmental strains and mutants selected after fungicide pressure, to assess its clinical involvement.

The New Horizons 2015 encounter with the Pluto system unveiled a remarkably active world, with a highly variegated surface displaying glaciers and dunes made of volatile N2, CH4, CO ices, and a chemically-rich atmosphere with extensive haze layers. These exotic, and sometimes enigmatic observations raised new fundamental questions on the evolution of the atmosphere and surface of Pluto and of similar worlds (cold objects with tenuous condensable atmospheres, e.g. Triton and other Trans-Neptunian objects) and call upon modeling efforts to complete their analysis and understand the associated mechanisms at play. In our SHERPAS project, we aim at using Pluto as a natural laboratory to study planetary climate physics and dynamics. In particular, our objectives are to understand: (1) What controls the thermal profile of Pluto’s atmosphere, in particular the unexpected 40K cooling above the stratosphere and the 3km-deep cold layer above the surface. Is it the organic haze? Does hydrocarbons condensation in the atmosphere plays a role? we recently acquired JWST observations of Pluto, which will provide us with clues regarding the radiative impact of the organic haze. We will also explore the thermal profile of Triton’s atmosphere, which remains largely unexplained. (2) What processes trigger the formation of atmospheric waves and observed haze layers. Are the waves dominated by a topographic forcing or by the diurnal sublimation and condensation (“breathing”) of nitrogen ice deposits? How do these waves affect the state of such tenuous atmospheres (e.g. temperatures and winds) ? (3) What surface-atmosphere interactions form the icy periodic bedforms observed at Pluto’s surface. Is it rather sublimation or condensation that dominates the formation of these structure? How do they compare to other similar ones in the solar system, especially on Earth and Mars? To achieve these goals, we will develop a new-generation global climate model, capable of simulating the atmosphere and surface of Pluto, Triton, and even other trans-Neptunian objects. This model will contain an ultra-parallelizable dynamic core, making it possible to speed up calculations by a factor of 200 compared to what is achieved today with the current Pluto model, which is crucial for simulating a Plutonian year (248 years). We will develop a complete radiative transfer scheme for Pluto and Triton, the microphysics of organic haze and clouds, the impact of micro-climates on slopes, and that of atmospheric waves on winds. The atmospheric model will also be coupled with a surface model to simulate the paleoclimates of Pluto and Triton over more than 100 million years. Finally, an exosphere model will be added to simulate the possible local and non-global atmospheres of Eris and Makemake when these objects approach their perihelion. These developments will directly and strongly benefit the scientific investigations of this project, and also beyond. In particular, the Generic model, simulating the climate of exoplanets, will be able to benefit from all the schemes that we will develop (microphysics of haze and hydrocarbons, radiative transfer, subgrid-scale slopes and wave scheme, paleoclimate model). We will combine the expertise of 3 laboratories (LESIA, LMD and LPG), and will compare our model results with available observations to interpret them. We will conduct comparative planetology studies, in particular between Pluto, Earth and Mars for surface ice structures, between Pluto, Triton and Mars for gravity waves, and between Pluto, Triton, Titan and early Earth for the radiative impact of the haze. These comparisons will allow us to assess the universality or uniqueness of the phenomena encountered on Pluto. The SHERPAS project will recruit: 1 two-year postdoctoral researcher at LESIA; 1 PhD at LPG, 1 research engineer at LMD.

Perennially frozen slopes occur in many mountain ranges of the world, and temperature changes in these environments have notable impacts on the state of permafrost, leading to increased slope instability and hazard from mass movements. In areas of discontinuous permafrost, these slopes can be hard to identify with certainty. This project investigates “molards” – cones of loose debris that result from thawing of blocks of ice-rich sediments mobilised by landslides in permafrost terrains. Molards are an understudied landform and have recently been shown to be an indicator of recent and ongoing permafrost degradation. In addition, they have spatial and geomorphic characteristics that reveal the dynamics of large mass movements. The PERMOLARDS project aims to build on these exciting new results and use molards as a geomorphological tool to understand climate change and natural hazard. We will use a multidisciplinary combination of field investigation, dating, laboratory and numerical simulations, modelling and remote sensing analysis to understand molard formation, evolution, morphology, longevity, and their environmental settings. We will explore three unique case studies in Greenland, Canada and Iceland, where we have identified with certainty molards that formed under climatic conditions from the Holocene to the present in a variety of geographic settings. We will constrain the morphological degradation of molards in space and time by using a morphological approach and novel luminescence dating techniques. We will define the range of material properties and ice configurations under which molards can form through field investigations and through simulation via analogue models in a laboratory cold room. Based on these results ancient molards can then be used to infer ground-ice contents. We will establish the baseline criteria to distinguish molards from other mounds in landslide deposits using remote sensing and field data that can be used by other researchers. We will use 3D numerical models to assess the potential role of thaw fluids in molard-hosting landslides in modifying the flow behaviour and its impact on hazard. We will monitor and model the state of permafrost at the field site in Greenland to ascertain the state of permafrost degradation represented by molards in new and recent landsides. Finally, we will establish the use of molards as a geomorphological tool to track permafrost degradation in time and in different geological and geographical settings around the globe. By developing these actions, the project provides insights into permafrost degradation in space and time, and the hazard posed by landslides in cold environments.

All models of the interiors of ice bodies in the Universe rely on our knowledge of the behaviour of a few simple molecules—hydrogen, water, methane, ammonia, nitrogen, helium —under high pressure (p) and temperature (T). In the last two decades, a tremendous effort has been devoted worldwide to determine the phase diagram of these systems up to extreme p-T conditions, a research to which members of our team have given key contributions. With these data at hand, and with the information obtained from various spectacular space missions, the scientific community is currently trying to understand the interior of ice bodies, their thermodynamic conditions, their chemistry, and ultimately the possibility to host life therein. Furthermore, several fundamental - and sometime unexpected- discoveries have been derived from these high p-T studies, among them: metallization of hydrogen, quantum criticality, high Tc superconductivity, polyamorphism, superionicity. Our team has recently shown that solid water under pressure can unexpectedly accommodate substantial amounts of guest species, like ions or small gas molecules, in its lattice. The inclusion of guest species strongly modifies the density, structural, thermal, and conductivity properties of ice, and promotes novel states of matter and remarkable properties. The existence of these “filled ices” in extra-terrestrial bodies challenges our present description of their physics, essentially based on the assumption of the properties of pure ice. Filled ices also show an incredibly enhanced capability of gas storage and sequestration with respect to common hydrates. Their potential as hydrogen storage materials and natural gas reservoirs, as well as their possible application for CO2 sequestration urgently need to be explored. The ultimate goal of our project is to define the range of existence of astrophysically relevant ion and gas “filled ice” structures, characterise the kinetics of their formation, unravel their unusual dynamical and conductivity properties under extreme p-T conditions, promote their stability at industrial exploitable conditions, and tailor their future applications as hydrogen storage and CO2 sequestration materials. This aspect of the proposed research perfectly matches the goals of the European Green Deal, as well as those of the PNRR, where hydrogen is looked upon as the next-generation clean-energy carrier. To realise our project we will combine complementary ground-breaking experimental techniques and novel simulation methods developed by our team of experts in the physics of molecular materials at extreme conditions and planetology.