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Casamaures Villa … A Moroccan Architectural Masterpiece Near the French Alps

The Casamaures villa. (AFP)
The Casamaures villa. (AFP)
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Casamaures Villa … A Moroccan Architectural Masterpiece Near the French Alps

The Casamaures villa. (AFP)
The Casamaures villa. (AFP)

The Casamaures villa is an oriental masterpiece from the 19th century, inspired by Moroccan architecture, near the city of Grenoble, in southeastern France. Passing through many owners, the villa was eventually saved by Christiane Guichard, who managed to enlist it as a historic landmark and worked for four decades on restoring it.

Guichard faced "a double challenge, to save the villa and revive it with creativity," reported AFP.

The 60-year-old owner, known as "Mrs. Casamaures," noticed that the villa, built in 1855 on the foothills of La Chartreuse Mountains in Saint-Martin-le-Vinoux, "has always beamed with life and made a great gathering place for the public."

The Casamaures stands unique among the other villas in that region near the French Alps. It has a sophisticated design with its oriental architecture consisting of arcades, arabesque, mashrabiyas, and huge windows with colored glass.

Overseeing a roofed 9-meter-long winter garden full of oriental antiquities, a part of its wooden façade was somehow transferred to the Turkish pavilion at the Exposition Universelle of 1855.

The villa also oversees gardens housing exotic plants and solar timepieces.

But how was an oriental palace established in the suburbs of Grenoble? The general context of that era allowed it, according to Béatrice Besse, art historian and novelist who recently wrote the biography of the villa's founder Joseph Jullien, a merchant from Grenoble known as Cochard.

The historian explains that the phase that followed Bonaparte's explorative trip to Egypt "promoted the beauty of this country," and this interest expanded later to include all that is related to the Ottoman Empire.

Grenoble was the most affected by this wave especially since it hosted Egyptologist Jean-François Champollion and Scientist Joseph Fourier. This orientalist influence was also reflected in architecture.

Although mystery surrounds the life of Cochard, he certainly never traveled to the East. All he wanted from the construction of this villa was to impress the bourgeoisie of Grenoble and build "a reputation for himself."

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Independent Researcher Exposes Basic Blunder in Scores of Cancer Studies

Researchers at the laboratory. (Cancer Research UK, Cambridge Institute)
Researchers at the laboratory. (Cancer Research UK, Cambridge Institute)
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Independent Researcher Exposes Basic Blunder in Scores of Cancer Studies

Researchers at the laboratory. (Cancer Research UK, Cambridge Institute)
Researchers at the laboratory. (Cancer Research UK, Cambridge Institute)

An independent researcher has uncovered potential blunder in scores of scientific studies, including cancer-related research, as a result of inappropriate antibody use in laboratory experiments, raising questions about the reliability of some of the results published in prestigious scientific journals.

The researcher found that scientists at Cambridge, Oxford, Stanford and other universities appear to have accidentally used the wrong ingredient in their experiments, muddling two proteins with similar names but entirely different sequences and functions.

Several British media outlets said researcher Sholto David reviewed the full text of 334 research papers to determine whether the antibody used in the studies was correctly intended for p16-ARC or incorrectly used to try and bind p16-INK4a.

P16-INK4a acts as a tumor suppressor by halting the cell cycle and is widely studied in cancer biology and is considered a key biomarker of ageing.

He found astonishing result: 95% of these papers have got it wrong.

“The vast majority of researchers who purchased antibodies have tried to use them to investigate p16-INK4a expression. Only 17 used these p16-ARC antibodies correctly,” he said in his research.

David said the implications are not good, to put it mildly.

“And these are not just insignificant papers. There are papers with hundreds of citations in high impact journals claiming to probe for p16-INK4a with antibodies which do not bind p16-INK4a,” he noted.

Varieties

Indonesia Volcano Erupts, Forcing Airport to Close

Journalists photograph a screen showing the movement of volcanic ash from Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki at the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) office in Maumere, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, on June 5, 2026. (AFP)
Journalists photograph a screen showing the movement of volcanic ash from Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki at the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) office in Maumere, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, on June 5, 2026. (AFP)
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Indonesia Volcano Erupts, Forcing Airport to Close

Journalists photograph a screen showing the movement of volcanic ash from Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki at the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) office in Maumere, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, on June 5, 2026. (AFP)
Journalists photograph a screen showing the movement of volcanic ash from Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki at the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) office in Maumere, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, on June 5, 2026. (AFP)

A highly active volcano in eastern Indonesia erupted several times on Friday, spewing towering ash columns into the sky and forcing a local airport to close, authorities said.

Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores Island erupted at 11:15 am (0315 GMT), sending volcanic material 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) into the air, the national volcanology agency said in a statement.

It came after several other eruptions earlier on Friday.

Lewotobi Laki-Laki falls under Indonesia's second-highest alert level for volcanic activity, with a five-kilometer exclusion zone in force around its crater.

The volcanology agency said residents near rivers should also remain on alert for hazardous floods of volcanic material, known as lahar, if heavy rain occurs.

Authorities have suspended operations at a local airport in the town of Maumere, about 60 kilometers west of Lewotobi Laki-Laki, affecting five domestic flights, airport head Partahian Panjaitan told AFP.

Laki-Laki means "man" in Indonesian, and the 1,584-meter (5,197-foot) volcano is twinned with a calmer 1,703-meter one named Perempuan after the Indonesian word for "woman".

Last July, Lewotobi Laki-Laki spewed a colossal 18-kilometer tower of ash, forcing the cancellation of 24 flights at the international airport on the resort island of Bali.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific "Ring of Fire".

Varieties

Rescued Orphaned Elephant Highlights Nigeria's Conservation Fight

Only 40 elephants are thought to live in Nigeria's Okomu forest, as their population has collapsed across the country. John OKUNYOMIH / AFP
Only 40 elephants are thought to live in Nigeria's Okomu forest, as their population has collapsed across the country. John OKUNYOMIH / AFP
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Rescued Orphaned Elephant Highlights Nigeria's Conservation Fight

Only 40 elephants are thought to live in Nigeria's Okomu forest, as their population has collapsed across the country. John OKUNYOMIH / AFP
Only 40 elephants are thought to live in Nigeria's Okomu forest, as their population has collapsed across the country. John OKUNYOMIH / AFP

As dawn breaks over Nigeria's Okomu National Park, an exhausted wildlife caretaker prepares milk formula for Agbaibor, a months-old orphaned forest elephant rescued after wandering out of the rainforest alone.

"The baby elephant has to take two liters of this per meal," said Joshua Aribasoye, one of those responsible for feeding and monitoring the calf around the clock in a makeshift pen at a ranger outpost inside the park in southern Edo state.

Forest elephants, smaller and more elusive than their savannah cousins, are endangered and their population has collapsed in recent decades largely because of habitat loss and poaching, AFP said.

Agbaibor -- named after the ranger who helped rescue him -- was found near a palm oil plantation bordering the protected forest late last year after being separated from the herd.

Rangers and conservationists tried to reunite the calf with its family by taking it back into the forest, but it soon wandered out again.

Fearing it would die alone or be attacked, park authorities and conservation group African Nature Investors (ANI) launched an emergency effort to nurse the animal, flying in elephant rehabilitation specialists from Zambia and assigning caretakers to raise him.

It has become a costly operation. ANI spends between four and five million naira (about $2,900-$3,600) a month on his care, including 77 kilograms of milk powder, alongside oats and nutritional supplements.

Conservationists expect the rehabilitation process to take another three to five years. They are building a new enclosure deeper inside the park, within elephant habitat, where the calf will gradually be exposed to the sounds and movements of wild herds before an eventual reintroduction.

"The calf will be cared for there... until it is integrated into a group," said ANI project manager Peter Abanyam.

- 200 remain -

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists forest elephants as critically endangered, with conservationists estimating only around 200 remain in the country.

Roughly 40 are believed to live in and around Okomu -- one of Nigeria's last remaining rainforest ecosystems, covering about 24,000 hectares.

"Okomu is critical for conservation in Nigeria," said Abanyam.

"In a small ecosystem like this, housing 40 elephants is a huge number, and it needs to be protected at all costs."

But pressure on the forest is intensifying.

Logging, poaching, farming and expanding human settlements have fragmented large parts of the reserve, shrinking elephant corridors and increasing contact between wildlife and nearby communities.

Godstime Christopher, 26, once helped transport illegally logged timber out of the forest before being recruited as a ranger by ANI.

Today, he works with the organization's biomonitoring team, using camera traps to track elephant movements and identify poachers.

"When I became a ranger, I thought I would use that to exploit logging," he admitted. "But the training changed our mentality."

- 'Preserve what we have' -

Conservation groups say engaging local communities is essential if endangered wildlife is to survive in one of Africa's fastest-growing countries, where economic hardship often drives people deeper into protected forests in search of land, timber or bushmeat.

While the ranger program appears to have helped drive down poaching in the area, hunting for other species still disturbs the elephants and degrades their habitat, Christopher warned.

Back at the rehabilitation center, Agbaibor splashes in the mud, nudges his handler for attention and drinks from oversized bottles of milk formula.

For Aribasoye, the demanding work has become deeply personal.

"We are supposed to be like a mother to him," he said.

"Seeing him eating and playing is part of the joy... because I know we are working to preserve what we have left."