The UV Science Park (PCUV), with the collaboration of the University of Valencia (UV), organizes for the fourth edition the outreach event, Expoinnova. The event seeks to awaken interest and vocations for scientific and technical careers among pre-university students. This year, the event will take place between 19 and 20 October 2023, in online and face-to-face format, with a program of four presentations given by Alberto Aparici, outreach coordinator at IFIC; Pau Carazo, researcher at ICBiBE; Laya Targa, data scientist at IRTIC; and Amparo López, researcher and deputy director of IATA-CSIC.
The presentations, which will take place in the Marie Curie Auditorium of the PCUV between 10:00h and 11:30h, will be divided between the two days of the event. As a novelty, in this edition the School of Engineering of the University of Valencia (ETSE-UV) will host students in its auditorium on Friday 20, who will be able to enjoy through the online broadcast of the presentations, as well as ask questions and raise doubts to the speakers, as they will be connected simultaneously with the PCUV.
Expoinnova will take place on October 19 and 20, 2023, in digital and on-site format, with a program of four lectures by professionals working in research centers and companies of the PCUV
Physics and aging coexist at the PCUV
On Thursday 19, Albert Aparici, outreach coordinator at IFIC, will give a talk entitled 'Frontiers of particle physics', in which the PhD in Particle Physics will explain how in the last hundred years physics has gone from knowing only three subatomic particles (the electron, the photon and the proton) to a list of more than three hundred, which increases every year. What is the function of this host of particles and why in atoms we only find a handful of them? The framework for answering these questions is the Standard Model, the grand theory of particle physics that explains what particles exist and what forces act between them. With the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, the theory was, in principle, closed, but there are good reasons to believe that the Standard Model is not the final word in the world of particles. Neutrino physics or dark matter suggest that there may be a new batch of hitherto unknown particles that could break through in the coming decades, forcing us to rethink everything we thought we understood. This talk will review what the Standard Model is and how it allows us to "order" the zoo of particles and how we foresee that the field may evolve over the course of the 21st century.
He will be followed by Pau Carazo, researcher at ICBiBE, who will ask the question 'Is aging inevitable? With this proposal, he will ask whether human beings accept, with greater or lesser fortitude, that aging is an unavoidable part of living a long time. But is this really so? This talk will review what biology has to say about it. Along the way, we will discuss centenarian clams, tiny animals capable of multiplying their life expectancy by 100 times, and other organisms that simply do not age. We will see how evolution can explain why most organisms age, why some age very quickly and others not at all, or why one sex often ages faster than the other.
Cinema and microplastics
Finally, on Friday 20, Laya Targa, data scientist at IRTIC, will review the evolution of technologies and data science over the years through movies. She assures that during her talk she will discuss how "Moneyball" and "Minority Report" offer glimpses into Big Data, data science and artificial intelligence. He will start by diving into "Moneyball," a movie that shows the Big Data revolution in the world of sports. He will then lead the lecture into the futuristic world of "Minority Report," where data science and artificial intelligence combine to predict and prevent crime. This film presents an intriguing vision of how artificial intelligence and data prediction can influence security and privacy in a hyper-connected world.
To close Expoinnova 2023, Amparo López, researcher and vice-director of IATA-CSIC, will talk about the problem of microplastics, emphasizing the current problems derived from the massive use of plastics and their inadequate management, the impact that microplastics are having, as well as the solutions that are being explored and the challenges that need to be addressed from the research point of view.