PRESS DOSSIER AUTUMN 2007 Some 244 activities will take place in the last quarter of 2007, forming part of 78 programmes and series of activities that make up the overall event that is Barcelona Science 2007. Barcelona will become a leading centre of scientific debate with the organization of 4 international meetings: the Scientific Congress of the European Association of Osseointegration (EAO), the European Network of Cities for Science (ESCITY), the Waterbird Society 31st Annual Meeting and the European Conference on Scientific Journalism. Reflection also has a space in these series, with The Myth of Origins. Belief and Science, at the Natural Science Museum, and Conversations in Barcelona, in the Palau de la Virreina. As part of the celebrations held on the occasion of Barcelona Science 2007, a tribute will be paid to Pius Font i Quer, founder of the Barcelona Botanical Institute. Raúl Motta, philosopher and disciple of Edgar Morin; Faraneh Vargha- Khadem, doctor; Samir Zeki, neurobiologist, and Roger Malina, astrophysicist and publisher will participate in the second part of the series of meetings Conversations in Barcelona. The Future(s) of Science. Barcelona research centres will hold open days in the framework of Science Week, which will take place from 9 to 18 November. The Science Ticket, arising out of Barcelona Science 2007, has become firmly established and will continue for the coming years. The Science Ticket provides admission to 7 science centres for an overall price of €18.50. Press dossier 2 TRIBUTE TO PIUS FONT I QUER The Barcelona Botanical Institute will remember the figure of its founder and first Director, Pius Font i Quer, with the unveiling of a plaque in his honour on Saturday 20 October at the Institute building in Passeig del Migdia, in Montjuïc. The framework of the Barcelona Science 2007 programme thus provides the occasion to restores the memory of one of the leading figures in Catalan botany, recognised the world over. At only 20 years of age, Pius Font i Quer graduated in Chemical Sciences. After a year at the Catalan Institute of Natural History, his interest in botany led him to take up Pharmacy, the only university course that offered studies in botany. He completed four years' work in two and by 1910 had published his first two articles: 'Notes on the Flora of the Bages' and 'A (Biological) Excursion to Castellfollit del Boix '. These were his first works; throughout a life dedicated to botany he would go on to publish some 270 more. He obtained his Doctorate in Pharmacy from the University of Madrid in 1911 and, while preparing his thesis, the Phototypographical Study of the Bages, sat the official examinations to become a pharmacist in the Military Health Corp. Following postings in Mahon, Burgos, Jaca, Madrid and Morocco, in 1915 he was assigned to the Military Pharmacy of Barcelona, in a period in which the Natural Sciences Council decided to appoint a group of technical collaborators. Only a year later, Font i Quer joined the group as a naturalist attached to the work of the Council and fully identified with the action programme led by the biologist Josep Maluquer i Nicolau: his main goal was to create an inventory of the flora of the Iberian Peninsula, and especially that of Catalonia, and to lay the foundations of a botanical research centre comparable with the most prestigious institutions of the day. The efforts of 20 years' work were seen to be culminated in the transformation of the Natural Science Museum's botany department into an independent Barcelona Botanical Institute, of which Dr. Font i Quer was Director. Created in 1934, it was a research centre that enjoyed worldwide recognition. From 1917 to 1937 Dr. Font i Quer carried out intensive study campaigns throughout the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa. Once the Universal Exposition of 1929 had ended, work began on construction of the Barcelona Botanical Gardens, taking advantage of the Foixarda stone quarries in Montjuïc. The Barcelona Botanical Institute was subsequently transferred to a building adjacent to the Gardens in 1940. Pius Font i Quer represents one of Catalonia's most outstanding botanists, he was Director of the country's most significant natural science institutions and formed part of both Catalan academic and social life. In July 1939 he was considered guilty of supporting the rebellion by signing a manifesto against the bombing of Barcelona; he was arrested and condemned to 8 years in prison, though he only served two. Once released he took part in the (clandestine) recovery of the Institute of Catalan Studies, alongside Ramon Aramon, Miquel Coll i Alentorn, Josep Puig i Cadafalch, Agustí Duran i Sanpere, Josep M. de Sagarra and Joaquim Folch i Torres, among others. Press dossier 3 Once the hardest years of the post war had passed, an agreement was established in 1946 between Barcelona City Council, to which the Botanical Institute had been transferred, and the Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). The CSIC was empowered to subsidise the Institute and assign it staff in order to compile a Flora Hispanica. This was the opportunity to reincorporate Pius Font i Quer to the Botanical Institute of whose leadership he had once been dispossessed. He was first designated as a 'Naturalist of the Botanical Institute' responsible for the Flora Hispanica, and the following year, 'Head of the Flora Hispanica Section'. The money that arrived to the Botanical Institute was scant in those days, though it did run to publication of the magazine Collectania Botanica, still published to this day, in addition to offering the possibility of the occasional scientific excursion. Font i Quer worked privately on an exsiccation entitled Herbario Normal, but he faithfully maintained one custom: every Saturday morning he walked to the Institute to work on his projects and talk to his students, advising and guiding them in their research. Difficulties in maintaining a regular research-work job turned him in the direction of vulgarisation on the one hand, and lexicography on the other. He did not consider these fields to be minor or secondary, Dr. Font i Quer was fully convinced that a certain anarchy reigned in botanical language that had to be corrected; even before the civil war he had worked with Pompeu Fabra on the presentation of the selection of botanical terms that had to appear in his dictionary of the Catalan language. But there are still more moments in his life that should be highlighted: in 1952 he was named a member of the Société Botanique de Genève and the following year, that of the appearance of his Botanical Dictionary, he was designated Vice-president of the science section of the Institute of Catalan Studies, a body whose presidency he would assume in 1958. Rigorous and untiring, Pius Font i Quer wrote 270 works on botany which may be grouped into different subjects: flowers, phytogeography, mycology, linguistics, chronicles of his explorations, writings related to the institutions in which he worked, extensive works of general botany and translations. He discovered 200 new plants for science and even the most complicated moments of his biography leave an inheritance of activities linked to botany: in the Modelo prison he invented an educational game for children and adults, which he baptised with the name of Botanicon. Pius Font i Quer was born in Lleida in 1888 and died in Barcelona in 1964. Press dossier 4 BARCELONA SCIENCE 2007: OCTOBER • CONGRESSES, SEMINARS, MEETINGS This month of October, Barcelona will host different congresses, conferences and seminars that will become platforms of reflection around the subject of science or showcases of the technological advances in research. The Natural Science Museum is organizing a series of dialogues under the title The Myth of Origins. Belief and Science. The event comprises eight workshops featuring the participation of eight pairs of speakers and eight moderators, as well as the screening of a film in each session to complement the discussion and invite reflection, in a series structured over the four key points of the Origins. UniverseEarthLifeHumanity exhibition, which may be visited in the same museum until 3 January. The Myth of Origins. Belief and Science sets out to offer a response to the question "Where do we come from?" with arguments that were initially based in the mythical discourse but which subsequently provided an answer thanks to observation and experimentation. The series confronts the opinions of scientists, researchers and thinkers, in eight debates which will address such topics as the Big Bang, geocentrism, dark energy, the beginning of life, origins explained for the religious point of view and that of ethnocentrism. The speakers have been divided into pairs formed by Juan Garcia Bellido, researcher at the CSIC and Jordi Nadal, prehistorian at the UB; Raimon Reginaldo, astronomer with the Astronòmica Agrupació of Sabadell and Santiago Riera, science historian at the UB; Mercè Piqueras, biologist, and Francesc Torralba, theologian, and Daniel Turbón, paleoanthropologist and Sebastià Serrano, linguist. The discussions will take place on the 9, 16, 18, 23, 25 and 30 October and 6 and 8 November, at the Natural Science Museum, from 6.30 p.m. Admission is free and places are limited. Bookings on 93 319 69 50 or the website [email protected]. The people who participate in these sessions may visit the Origins. UniverseEarthLifeHumanity exhibition free of charge on the same day as the discussion, from 5.30 p.m. Natural Science Museum. Pg. Picasso, s/n. Another of the notable meetings programmed for this month is the Scientific Congress of the European Association of Osseointegration in the Barcelona International Convention Centre, which will be held from 25 to 27 October. With an estimated participation of some 4,500 attendees and under the title Contemporary Oral Implant Practice, the Congress is intended as a meeting point for oral-dental health professionals and an opportunity for them to share experiences relating to research in Osseointegration, at the same time as a providing a vehicle to disseminate among the wider public the advances in this scientific practice.