Fairies

This year, ICMAB will be present at EXPOMINER (9-11 November, Palau 1, Fira Barcelona), with more activities than ever! Come and listen to the amazing talks by our researchers on the color of minerals, boron for nanomedicine, quarts along our history, synchrotron radiation and magnetism! And in our stand, you will have the opportunity to play with cyrstals and diffraction, and visit the exhibiton "Matheroes: Supermaterials, the heroes of the future". Don't miss it!

From Monday 22 October the exhibition MATHEROES: Supermaterials, the hereos of the future will be at the ICMAB hall. During the days that the five Matheros will be here with us, some activities are organized: we will present the project to the UAB students, we will carry out a roundtable about the image of women in audiovisual content, and some of our researchers will offer guided visits for our support staff. 

On Saturday 29 September, the dramatised reading "Madame Châtelet and her Instagram followers", which features the life and discoveries of several women scientists throughout history, was represented in the Library "Biblioteca Sagrada Família", Barcelona, at 1 pm, in the framework of the activities of the European Researchers' Night (Nit Europea de la Recerca), organised in Catalonia. 

On Friday, 28 September 2018, the ICMAB and most of the research centers in Catalonia, Spain and Europe, celebrated the 2018 European Researchers' Night (named "Nit Europea de la Recerca" in Catalonia). The ICMAB was at CosmoCaixa Barcelona from 7 pm until 11 pm for a night of nanoscience and nanotechnology workshops and a talk on spin currents! 

On Wednesday, 5 September, the ICMAB staff could bring their children, their grandchildren, and even their nephews and nieces to spend a morning at our centre full of scientific activities for another edition of the Kids Day!

In the end, more than 75 kids of ages between 1 and 17 joined us! Many volunteers from the ICMAB helped out during the day, organizing the activities and taking care of the kids. Thank you all for your great collaboration and participation!

The European Researchers' Night (Nit Europea de la Recerca) is celebrated throughout Europe on the last Friday of September, with the aim of bringing science, research and technology closer to the public. In Catalonia, under the theme "Research, heritage of all", outreach activities will take place on Friday 28 and Saturday 29 September in Barcelona, ​​Tarragona, Lleida, Girona, Blanes and Vic, among other places.

The ICMAB will participate with some highschool talks on Friday morning, with a nanoscience workshop and a Speaker's Cornet talk in CosmoCaixa on Friday evening, and in the Biblioteca Sagrada Família on Saturday morning with "Madame Châtelet and her Instagram followers".

On 16-17 June the ICMAB participated at the Barcelona Maker Faire. Many members of the NANOMOL group presented their research on encapsulation and hydrogels for biomedical applications. They used the spherification concept as a metaphor for the nanoencapsulation, and the gelification of agar agar for the hydrogels. The stand, which was always full of families and kids, obtained the Maker of Merit award, given by the organization to the best Makers of this year's edition. 

On 9-10 June 2018, ICMAB participated at the 12th edition of the Barcelona Science Festival with lots of activities. The festival counted with more than 230 activities in 33 different spaces distributed along the Ciutadella Park. 160 institutions (research centers, entities, associations, universities, individuals) participated in the event, organized by BCNCiència (Institut de Culgura de l'Ajuntament de Barcelona), and more than 20,000 attendees joined the festival during the weekend. 

Are you ready for a weekend full of science in an amazing venue in Barcelona? On June 9-10, many ICMAB researchers participate at the Barcelona Science Festival at Parc de la Ciutadella (Barcelona). Come with us and participate with your friends and family to the many activities prepared.

From ICMAB, Jordi Rius and Ashley Black will give two microtalks on crystalline structure of minerals and lithium-ion batteries, Martí Gibert will participate on a debate on how nanotechnology affects our life, Javier Repetto will talk about nanomedicine and the film Fantastic Voyage, and Anna May will be challenging the participants with a photonic contest and coordinating some of the events. 

Pint of Science, the festival that gathers people together in bars to listen to scientific presentations instead of watching a football match, has been a great success, with more than 20,000 participants around Spain. In Barcelona, 10 bars were hosting scientific talks during the three days of the festival (14, 15 and 16 May 2018). ICMAB was also represented, as we explained in a previous post: Javier Repetto in Casa Orlandai on Tuesday 15 May, and Irene Antonin Alfa Bar on Wednesday 16 May. 

Our traditional photo contest, FOTICMAB, is already a consolidated activity and receives every year a high participation. This year, we had three categories: scientific, artistic and "ICMAB moments". The artistic category was the one with the highest participation (48 photos), followed by our most favourite scientific category (19 photos) and the recovered "ICMAB moments" with 10 photos.

The winner of the scientific category is the photo you can see above; "Photonic leaf" by Cristiano Matricardi. "Rainbow", by Laia Soler won the artistic category, and "¡Con una sonrisa se trabaja mejor!" by Adriana Kyvik won the "ICMAB moments" category. The three winners are all PhD researchers at the Institute. The winner of each cateogory received a smartbox to enjoy a dinner for two. 

Let's see the story behind each one of the winning and finalist photos:

On April 11, 2018, the ICMAB was present at the XIII "Fira d'Empreses" or Business Forum, at the Universitat the Barcelona (UB), after some years of absence. This forum is designed to showcase job opportunities and career paths and attract students in the final stages of their university degree, and is organized by the Science and Engineering Departments of the UB (Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Computer Science, Earth Sciences and Biology). 105 industries, research centers and universities participated in the event, which counted with the visit of more than 600 unversity students from sixteen degrees and twenty-two masters in these scientific areas. 

 The XIX Edition of ExpoRecerca Jove 2018 took place between 22 and 24 March in La Salle, Barcelona. Anna May, from ICMAB, participated as member of the jury of the presented projects by the talented groups of students from all over the world. 

Is is a great event in which the students present their pioneer and innovative projects, in many different fields: health, technology, biology, chemisty, arts & literature, robotics, etc. The students explain their projects to the jury members, and to all the visitors who wish to learn more about the future challenges of our world. 

Prof. Elies Molins, researcher at ICMAB and member of GISME (Interdisciplinary Reflection Group and Math Solutions for Entities), has collaborated in the creation of the exhibition 'Numbers and humanity' (Los números y la humanidad), which was exposed in the begining of 2018 at the UB, and on March this year at the "Saló de l'Ensenyament", next to the "Espai Ciència". Prof. Elies Molins is Scientific Director of the exhibition, together with Prof. Javier Tejada (GISME-UB), who is also the main organizer and curatior of the exhibition.

This year 2018 the ICMAB will be present like last year at "Expominer: Saló de minerals fòssils i joieria". The ICMAB will participate with a stand for some workshops for kids and families on minerals, materials and energy. In addition, some ICMAB researchers will give some science talks on different topics: magnetism, characterization of minerals using synchrotron light, optical properties of crystals, the history of borax (sodium borate), and quars. Don't miss the opportunity to visit one of the events with more minerals, fossils and jewelry of the world! A perfect place for school visits and families! 

After the success of the first edition in 2017 with more than 300 attendees, the second edition of BCNspiracy will taka place in CosmoCaixa Barcelona on 26-27 October 2018. This year, apart from the traditional talks BCNspiracy on science outreach, there will be a session on INspriacy (26 October), where secondary school students will have the opportunity to get inspired by young students who are studying their degree or are doing their PhD. On 27 October there will also be workshops and shows (PLAYspiracy) to show the interactive side of science, and a final networking event between speakers and audience, BEERspiracy. 

On 27 and 28 February, the ICMAB was present at YoMo 2018, The Youth Mobile Festival, with an interactive stand open to all the primary and secondary school students who visited the Festival, and to all of their teachers. On Tuesday 27 February, the stand was devoted to the 3D printed structures with the 3D printing 3Doodler pens, by Andrés Gómez, from the Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) lab. Both boys and girls gathered around the tables willing to build their bridge or the structure of a carbon nanotube with the 3D pens.

On 27 and 28 February from 9 am to 4 pm, the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB) will be at YoMo with an interactive stand to enhance the creativity of the students that will attend this festival, and introduce them to the materials science and nanotechnology world. 

Between 14 and 16 May 2018, the bars of Barcelona will be full of science. Pint of Science is back in town!

Irene Anton, PhD researcher at the NN group will give a talk on "Medicina regenerativa: cas concret dels implants de pell" on Wednesday, 16 May in Alfa Bar (Gràcia); and the Master student at NANOMOL group, Javier Repetto, will show the audience how to extract DNA on Tuesday 15 May in Casa Orlandai (Sarrià), during the session of "Nanoviaje por el cuerpo humano". 

The 10alamenos9 Festival of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology arrives to its 3rd edition! On April 2018, more than 1,000 participants (around 700 secondary school students, 150 primary school students), will participate in the more than 70 activities prepared by all the entities collaborating in this macro-event, that takes place in Barcelona, Zaragoza, Valencia, Bilbao and Madrid. 

ICMAB participates in the initiative "Yo ilustro la ciencia 3" within Illustraciencia, an international cycle of activities between October and December 2017. We are hosting a Science Illustration exhibition by Roc Olivé Pous, specialized in paleoart, dinosaurs, biology and medicine, in the framework of the "Setmana de la Ciència 2017" activities organized by the CSIC in Catalunya. 

ICMAB participated on 10,11,12 November 2017 at ExpoMiner, the exhibition of minerals, fossils and jewelry, with some outreach talks given by four of our researchers, and science demos in our stand about superconducting materials, photovoltaic energy, batteries and graphene. According to ExpoMiner, which highlighted that the science talks and demos had been very popular among the visitors, all the talks and workshops of the exhibition attracted more than 450 visitors, which represented a 12.5 % increase respect to last year. 

2017 is the year of minerals as an energy resource. EXPOMINER (10-12 November) has chosen as its theme the relationship between minerals, energy and sustainable development. ICMAB, a research center of materials science, will participate in the event with some amazing talks from our researchers and interactive workshops. Join us in this event! 

As we already announced,  Andrés Gómez and Guillermo de Andrés Iglesias, from ICMAB, have been selected as finalists with their project “BRIDG3D: Imprimiendo puentes en 3D” in the XVIII Edition of "CiencIa en Acción" in the category "Science and Technology". Well, the FINAL day has arrived: tomorrow, Andrés and Guillermo will head to Izarra Centre in Ermua (Vizcaya, Basque Country) to defend their project in front of many others, from 6 to 8 October 2017. 

The 18th Edition of EXPOQUIMIA, the International Chemistry Event from Fira de Barcelona, will take place on October 2-6, 2017, and will be the venue for the 10th World Congress on Chemical Engineering, the World Chemical Summit, and the PHARMAprocess forum. It will also host the exhibition Smart Chemistry, Smart Future, and the Industrial Biotech forum, and the IN(3D)USTRY, EQUIPLAST and EURSURFAS events.

On September 8, 2017, ICMAB and its employees will participate in the "Kids' Day at ICMAB".

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Last weekend, 27-28 May, the Ciutadella Park hosted the 2017 Barcelona Science Festival "Festa de la Ciència 2017". ICMAB participated giving some "microtalks" on solar cells and photonic crystals.

The biggest Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Festival in Spain, 10alamenos9, which takes place simultaneously in different cities (Barcelona, Campus UAB-Bellaterra, Zaragoza, San Sebastián and Madrid), has organized more than 100 activities and reached more than 50 primary schools and secondary high schools, with their respective students. More than 15 research institutes and universities participated in the event.

During the Youth Mobile Festival Barcelona (YoMo) (February 27th - Mach 2nd), Andrés Gómez and Guillermo de Andrés from ICMAB used the 3Doodler 3D printing pens to teach the scientific method to those, young students and adults, approaching the ICMAB stand. The activity consisted in building a resistant bridge with the 3D printing pens. 

El Festival de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia 10alamenos9 té com a objectiu la sensibilització i l’augment del coneixement general cap a la nanociència i la nanotecnologia al nostre país, mostrant les implicacions i l’abast d'aquestes dues disciplines a través de tallers, exposicions, taules rodones, cafès, tertúlies, seminaris, classes magistrals, actuacions de ciència, art i moltes altres activitats.

Un nanómetro es la mil millonésima (10-9, “10 a la menos 9”) parte de un metro. Un tamaño realmente diminuto. El Festival pretende, de una forma amena y emocionante, acercar a todos los públicos la escala nanométrica, sus efectos y cómo este conocimiento va a cambiar nuestras vidas a través de innumerables aplicaciones y productos. ¡No importan la edad ni los conocimientos previos!

El ICMAB ha estado estos días en el YOMO, un salón didáctico centrado en la juventud, vinculado al Mobile World Congress. Durante dos días los numerosos visitantes que pasaron por el taller, organizado por Andrés Gómez y Guillermo De Andrés, pudieron aprender qué es el método científico y se les invitó a ser científicos por un día aplicando los conocimientos adquiridos para construir puentes usando los lápices  3Doodler.

El YOMO se celebrará en Barcelona del 27 de Febrero al 2 de Marzo, con motivo del Mobile World Congress. El taller, diseñado por Andrés Gómez y Guillermo de Andrés y llamado "Bridg3d", desafiará a los estudiantes a realizar un puente en 3D utilizando un bolígrafo-impresora.

22-26 MARZO 2017. RECINTO MONTJUÏC