Live Research Fair: experience the leading science with its main actors
Protecting the most threatened raptor birds in the Mediterranean ecosystems, discovering the world of geology around the streets of Barcelona using an app, testing nanoparticles to see whether they are able to fight cancer, collaborating in a 3D reconstruction of a protohistoric village are some of the proposals in the 15th edition of the Live Research Fair, to be held from the 3rd to the 6th of May in CosmoCaixa Barcelona.
Protecting the most threatened raptor birds in the Mediterranean ecosystems, discovering the world of geology around the streets of Barcelona using an app, testing nanoparticles to see whether they are able to fight cancer, collaborating in a 3D reconstruction of a protohistoric village are some of the proposals in the 15th edition of the Live Research Fair, to be held from the 3rd to the 6th of May in CosmoCaixa Barcelona.
The new edition of this fair is organized by the Barcelona Science Park (PCB) and Obra Social la Caixa, with support from the Barcelona City Council and the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT). The opening took place on Wednesday, May 3, at 12.30 noon, and counted with the participation of the Rector of the UB, Joan Elias; the General Director of the Barcelona Science Park, Ignasi Belda; the Director of the Research and Knowledge Area of la Caixa Banking Foundation, Jordi Portabella; and the Director of CosmoCaixa, Lluís Noguera.
Once more, the University of Barcelona is collaborating in this new edition of this fair, which will gather a total of eleven research groups from around Catalonia to show the audience about the protocols and experimental methodologies linked to their research projects.
Power lines: bird death traps
The audience will discover the scientific work carried out by the Conservation Biology Group to improve the preservation of endangered species such as Bonelliʼs Eagle (Aquila fasciata). This group, led by Professor Joan Real, from the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences and the Biodiversity Research Institute of the University of Barcelona (IRBio), has been a reference in the field of research of the ecology of Bonelliʼs eagles since 1980. This species has been specially threatened by the accidents due power lines and human persecution. This group is also distinguished thanks to their contributions to find solutions in order to improve the preservation of the species. Around 80% of European populations of Bonelliʼs eagle are currently in the Iberian Peninsula. In Catalonia, its population has been stable during the last years and there is some colonization in certain areas, but the north and center of the peninsula has some areas with populations at risk of disappearing.
BCNRocks: rocks talk to us
Discovering the kind of rocks found in façades and pavements around the urban environment and combining an interest in the world of geology, architecture and history are the main aims of the app BCN Rocks, an app for smartphones and devices that invites us to discover the city of Barcelona from a new scientific and cultural perspective. In the Fair, participants will find about this new app -launched by the Faculty of Earth Sciences of the University of Barcelona and the Institute of Earth Sciences Jaume Almera of the Spanish Scientific Research Council (ICTJA-CSIC)- which invites participants to discover Barcelona through the eyes of geology.
Attendants will also learn about the protocols to test the effectiveness of drugs to treat malaria, with the experts from the Research Group on Malaria from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), and see how researchers work at the Institute of Biomedical Research (IRB) to recycle effective drugs against complex metabolic diseases, among other proposals in the Live Research Fair.