Today begins at the University of Navarra the XVI Science and Technology Week, an event that will take place from November 7 to 14 and that has as goal the promotion of scientific vocations among students and the knowledge dissemination of science through activities aimed at all audiences.

In partnership with the Friends of Science Club, the Planetarium of Pamplona and the Public University of Navarra, the Science Week will start this afternoon at 5:30 p.m. at place del Castillo, where students and teachers will perform live experiments.

Earlier in the morning, the School de Ciencias hosted the first experiment workshops - which will be repeated daily at the Hexagon Building with students from high school diploma from schools all over Navarra - and the first lecture, entitled "Are you breathing safely at home?" was held. In it, the professor of Chemistry and environmental pollution expert Jesús Miguel Santamaría warned that indoor pollution can be up to 100 times higher than outside: "If we take into account that we spend 90% of our day inside our homes, the place where we live work, etc., this figure is even more serious, and is the reason why 27,000 people die every year in Spain alone because of the poor quality of the air we breathe," said the expert at lecture.

He also recommended that to solve pollution in our homes "it is often enough to ventilate well for 10 or 15 minutes at times when there is no traffic, do a good maintenance of stoves and kitchens, use the hood whenever food is cooked, keep the rooms of the house clean and dry and, above all, spend more time outdoors, where there is much less pollution, although sometimes we believe otherwise.

Physics macroexperiment: how do we act in an agglomeration?

Between Tuesday 8th and Monday 14th, five other conferences will be held at the auditorium of the School of Sciences of the University of Navarra: "Chemistry ycómics. Superheroes in re-action" will be given by Professor José Ramón Isasi on Tuesday 8th; "The threat of superbugs", at position by David González (Wednesday 9th); "Understanding the bird of prey: From chicken to adult", in which Luis Lezana, from the Tierra Rapaz park, will show live some birds of prey (Friday 11); and "Wewill save your life: vaccines work", with which Nacho López-Goñi, Full Professor of Microbiology, won one of the 2016 Naukas awards (Monday 14 at the auditorium of the Science Library) .

In addition, the lecture on Thursday 10th will include a macro-experiment in which more than 200 students will participate. In "Learning physics in Sanfermines", Professor Iker Zuriguel, from department Physics, will show live how people behave in a crowd and how they instinctively place themselves behind each other to facilitate movement when there is an overcrowding status .

Finally, the fifth floor of Hexagon Building will host daily workshops to "touch" the Chemistry, physics and biology and guided tours will be organized to CIMA and the Museum of Natural Sciences.