Thursday, May 18, 2017

ChallenGen at the Pint of Science festival in Blanes

by Xavier Turon

The Pint of Science festival aims to deliver interesting talks on the latest science research in an accessible format to the public – mainly across bars and pubs (preferably with a pint of beer in hands). It is an International festival being held annually over three days at the same time in hundreds of cities across the world. Blanes, the host city of the CEAB, has participated for the first time in this year’s Pint of Science festival. The scientists of the CEAB gave nine talks three evenings (15-17 May 2017).

Xavier Turon participated in the first day of the festival, presenting the opening talk at a nice bar (Casal la Cooperativa) on the topic: Biodiversity 2.0: genetics and computers to study the living organisms. Needless to say, his talk capitalized on results obtained during the ChallenGen project, particularly those related to biodiversity assessment via metabarcoding.

It was an enjoyable and challenging experience to try to explain in lay terms some complex analysis we do in our research. The audience was very interested and asked many questions after the talk.