With a few dozen people, the George Best Club in Valencia, one of the reference venues for rock
music in the city
, is packed one weekend .
However, those who gathered at the joint on Monday, looking for a place to squeeze in, were not congregating for the performance of a tribute band.
Beer in hand and surrounded by posters, such as the one for the promotional tour of Los Planetas in 2000, several scientists talked about epigenetics, why we have hangovers or how the same yeast with which beer is created could help find a cure. for cancer.
Up to 800 scientists from different institutions have mobilized since last Monday and until this Wednesday in 44 Spanish cities to participate in the
Pint of Science initiative,
which aims to spread scientific culture in relaxed, friendly environments, while having a few beers.
Emerged in 2012 in the United Kingdom, the festive and educational combination has spread to 24 countries;
In Spain, this update of the classic axiom of teaching with delight has been organized for four years.
"The idea that everyone has of scientists is that we are half-crazy people, who spend their days locked up in the laboratory," explained Sandra Medrano, immunologist and volunteer for the national
Pint of Science
team .
“But science should not be for the few.
That's why we take her to the bars, which is where the people are,” she added.
The topics of the talks are very varied.
Thus, in the Manuela bar, in the Madrid neighborhood of Malasaña, on Monday, during the first day of the festival, they talked about nuclear energy, about the dark energy that caused the Big-Bang and even about how little the
X- Men
on evolution.
Between one conversation and another, a round of questions and the possibility of approaching the bar so that no one runs out of beer was guaranteed.
In the aforementioned bar in Valencia, the talk was entitled
Yeasts not only make pints, they are pure science
, the head scientist of the CSIC of the Institute of Biomedicine of Valencia (IBV), Susana Rodríguez-Navarro, and Lola Serrano Martín, predoctoral researcher of the same, they spoke about how human beings have been playing with genetics since the very moment they learned to make bread, beer or wine.
The importance of yeasts, the scientists explained, lies in the fact that not only did they save many people from boredom during the pandemic to make beer, but they are also a very useful model organism for biomedical research.
Marcos Méndez, from the area of biology and conservation of the Rey Juan Carlos University of Madrid during his talk at El Manuela, in Madrid, Aitor Sol
Rodríguez-Navarro is among the few scientists who can say they have discovered a new gene.
This gene, which her discoverer named SUS1, is found in all living organisms and is responsible for making epigenetic modifications, that is, hereditary changes caused by the activation and deactivation of genes without any change in the underlying DNA sequence of the organism. organism.
One of these genes that accompany SUS1 turns out to be one of the most mutated by cancer, being present in practically all cases.
“A study has recently been published in which other researchers have identified some drugs that could eliminate the pathogenicity that causes this disease to develop.
It fills me with satisfaction to have contributed to that.
After some jokes for scientists about the labeling and composition of an "epigenetic" shampoo and after a brief pause, just the time it took for the attendees to crowd in front of the bar to order another beer, the researcher Carlos Manuel Cuesta Diaz, from the Center Research Prince Felipe (CIPF), took over to explain the hangover through memes and what is the logic behind breathalyzer controls.
Among recreational substances, explains Cuesta, ethanol is a "minority" and yet "it has caused wars and moved empires."
“We live in a society that is very prone to hypertrophy of brain reward pathways.
Ethanol has such a big effect on people due to heavy consumption.
We take ethanol to stop a train and it is distributed in the same proportion throughout the body through the water in the blood.
That is the reason why you can be fined after having consumed a few beers.
Drinking is like smoking, it is not so much that you enjoy alcohol, but that you link it to a feeling of well-being, to a pleasant state”, explained the researcher.
Marcos Méndez researches evolutionary biology at the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid.
He decided to take advantage of his 20 minute micro to show that, to understand evolution, it is better to leave aside the mutants of Marvel comics.
“I am going to make a revelation to you that is going to blow your mind.
I am also a mutant: I am left-handed and blue-eyed”, began the teacher.
He managed to gain the attention and laughter of the audience within two minutes of starting his presentation.
Veterans of the talks and the beers
Among the audience, made up mostly of science enthusiasts, there were those who can already be defined as a veteran of beer talks.
Andrés Agustí, a 26-year-old physics student at the Complutense University, participated in his first edition of
Pint of Science
in Spain in 2018. Due to the pandemic, in the last two years all the meetings were held online.
“It was good, because all the topics are very entertaining, especially among people of the same
suit
as we are scientists.
But it's not the same, with a beer with friends it's much cooler, ”he pointed out.
Andrea Alcozer is 25 years old and studies biology.
She attended the event in Madrid to listen to the presentation of Méndez, who was her teacher during her degree.
However, it was the talk about dark energy by Eusebio Sánchez, a researcher at the Center for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research, that made her head explode.
“These topics have nothing to do with my specialization.
But I was able to understand everything.
It is science, but at a closer level”, she commented at the end of the evening.
“We are used to believing that important things are only discovered abroad, but Spain is one of the countries that produces the most scientific publications,” stressed Medrano, who moved to Germany to continue researching in his field due to the precariousness of his job. I work at a university in Madrid.
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