De Copas con Ciencia: Jesús Gracia & Francisco J. Fernández

Tequila and CO2 this month in “De Copas con Ciencia”.

On Thursday 27 April a new session of the successful project “De Copas con Ciencia” will take place. An initiative that aims to satisfy the scientific curiosity of the population in a relaxed, entertaining and fun way during leisure time, bringing it to the bars. The activity is aimed at the whole population with scientific curiosity without the need for specific training in science and aims to be a meeting point for science lovers in order to facilitate the creation of scientific debates between experts and the general public.

The activity is organised by the research institutes, ISQCH (Instituto de Síntesis Química y Catálisis Homogénea) e INMA (Instituto de Nanociencia y Materiales de Aragón), both joint centres CSIC – University of Zaragoza, and will be repeated periodically on the last Thursday of each month. During these sessions, topics related to chemistry, nanotechnology and materials science will be discussed.

The next edition will feature Jesús Gracia Mora and Francisco J. Fernández-Álvarez. The session, with free admission, will take place on 27 April at 20:00 at El Sótano Mágico, Calle San Pablo 43, Zaragoza.

– Tequila, chemistry before and after”, Jesús Gracia Mora

Tequila is an iconic Mexican drink, in recent decades its popularity has increased all over the world and it has a reputation for making us drunk. Why does this happen, does it make us more drunk than other drinks, how is tequila produced and what happens to it when we drink it? These are some of the questions raised in the talk and some of the chemistry related to tequila before and after drinking it will be discussed.

Jesús Gracia Mora has a degree in chemistry, a master’s degree in chemical sciences (Inorganic Chemistry) and a doctorate in chemistry from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He has been a research professor at the Faculty of Chemistry of the UNAM since 1997. His research focuses on molecular recognition systems and their applications such as controlled drug release and stimulus-sensitive systems.

– Climate, CO2 and Society”, Francisco J. Fernández-Álvarez

Over the last decades a huge economic investment has been made to raise public awareness of the negative effect that consumerism has had on our environment and our planet’s climate. One of the parameters usually related to climate change is the increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, which has now exceeded 400 ppm. This is relevant because studies of CO2 content in permafrost strata indicate that over the last 800,000 years the CO2 content of the atmosphere has fluctuated cyclically between 180 and 280 ppm. On the other hand, it is well known that the Earth’s climate in general, and glaciations in particular, depend on parameters that humans cannot control, such as: the orientation of the poles (magnetic field), the precession movement and ellipticity of the Earth’s orbit, as well as solar cycles, among others. During this short talk, scientific knowledge on these topics will be disseminated with the intention of providing the audience with tools to judge the possible anthropogenic origin of climate change on our planet.

Francisco J. Fernández-Álvarez holds a PhD in Chemistry (University of Alcalá de Henares). After working at Sibelco Española and at the University of Zurich, he joined UNIZAR where he has been developing his career in the field of Sustainability of Chemical Processes.

Currently, he works at ISQCH and leads one of the research teams of the Homogeneous Catalysis by Organometallic Compounds group. His main research interest is the development of Sustainable Chemical Processes using catalysts. In 2013 he was awarded the Research Prize of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Zaragoza for his research on CO2 chemistry.

In addition, during the session there will be a face-to-face Hi Score Science competition aimed at the general public that will reward the scientific knowledge acquired by the attendees with an informative book.

Hi Score Science is a game of questions and answers about science, in Spanish and English, for mobile devices, iOS and Android that is developed between the two research institutes, the ISQCH and INMA, which allows to include explanations of the scientific reality behind each of the answers. The game can be downloaded free of charge and without advertising at Apple Store https://goo.gl/q1NjKy and Play Store: https://goo.gl/GgWq6N and for Windows, iOS and Linux at www.HiScoreScience.org. In addition, the application allows users to participate in the project by sending their own questions via a dedicated website www.hiscorescience.org.

 

Advertising poster

Date

Apr 27 2023
Expired!

Time

20:00 - 21:00

Este sitio web utiliza cookies para que usted tenga la mejor experiencia de usuario. Si continúa navegando está dando su consentimiento para la aceptación de las mencionadas cookies y la aceptación de nuestra política de cookies

ACEPTAR
Aviso de cookies