2015_11_10_CIE_semana_ciencia

The conferences of the Science Week at the University of Navarra have already counted several hundred high school students who have attended the talk of Professor Jordi Puig, from the of high school diploma who have attended the talk by Professor Jordi Puig, from department at Environmental Biology, who asked whether the environment is a priority issue in times of crisis and whether we can educate ourselves as people without paying attention to what the earth and nature can teach us. In his talk he defended that, in order to have a good understanding of what we are, we must ask more and better questions to nature "that gives us life and sustains us".

Silvia Cenoz, researcher and professor at department of Biochemistry and Genetics, explained to the students the case of an American family whose skin color was blue due to a hereditary disorder called methemoglobinemia, and showed the students, experimentally, how this coloration had been possible.

Carlos Chaccour, for his part, spoke about malaria in relation to the latest award Nobel Prize in Medicine, which has awarded the finding of ivermectin and artemisinin: two findings that have changed the way of dealing with this terrible disease, which causes more than 500,000 deaths every year, mostly of children (the equivalent of the entire population of Navarra, but only of children, dying every year). As explained by the researcher of the high school of Tropical Health of the University of Navarra, the goal of the team in which he works consists precisely in fighting the disease using both means.

Finally, Ignacio López-Goñi, professor of Microbiology, showed the students three stories about microbes and viruses approached from the point of view of knowledge dissemination and humor. In front of a auditorium with more than 200 students he revealed why a cow farm can explode and how it is related to the great extinction that took place on Earth 250 million years ago; he showed how it is possible to make cheese and beer from bacteria of the genus lactobacillus isolated from beard hairs or the sole of a person's foot; and he unraveled the mystery of the torpevirus: a finding that could explain why some people are less intelligent than others.

The Science Week program will continue with the lecture "Chemistry that illuminates", and a macro-experiment with more than 70 students, which will take place at auditorium of Hexagon Building.