News
03/08/2016
Pier 01, the new Barcelona technology hub
Pier 01, the new Barcelona technology hub
The Barcelona entrepreneurial ecosystem has now a new meeting point: the new Barcelona Tech City association head office inaugurated in late July by the President of Catalonia and the Mayor of the City. Barcelona Tech City is an association open to any players of the digital and technology business operating in Barcelona. It currently counts 330 members.
This head office is located in the iconic 19th century Palau del Mar building in the Barceloneta district, a Port de Barcelona property. This 10,000 sqm space currently hosts 80 start-ups and 1,000 people from the digital and technology sectors. This so-called Pier 01 project is supported by the City Council, the Catalan government and Port de Barcelona.
According to Wallapop and Letsbonus companies founder Miguel Vicente, president of Barcelona Tech City, Pier 01 aims at becoming one of the most important technology hubs in Europe, together with those of Berlin or London.
Companies already installed include start-ups at different progress levels such as Cornerjob, Holaluz, Letgo, Byhours or Tiendeo but also accelerators and incubators such as Conector, Antai Venture Builders, Nuclio, or mVentures from the Mobile World Capital initiative. 50% of the companies are less than 5 years old and 60% have an international presence.
This head office is located in the iconic 19th century Palau del Mar building in the Barceloneta district, a Port de Barcelona property. This 10,000 sqm space currently hosts 80 start-ups and 1,000 people from the digital and technology sectors. This so-called Pier 01 project is supported by the City Council, the Catalan government and Port de Barcelona.
According to Wallapop and Letsbonus companies founder Miguel Vicente, president of Barcelona Tech City, Pier 01 aims at becoming one of the most important technology hubs in Europe, together with those of Berlin or London.
Companies already installed include start-ups at different progress levels such as Cornerjob, Holaluz, Letgo, Byhours or Tiendeo but also accelerators and incubators such as Conector, Antai Venture Builders, Nuclio, or mVentures from the Mobile World Capital initiative. 50% of the companies are less than 5 years old and 60% have an international presence.
28/07/2016
Zero 2 Infinity sends satellites into space
Zero 2 Infinity sends satellites into space
Thanks to a balloon monitored from the ground, aerospace company Zero 2 Infinity located in Parc Tecnològic del Vallès, Barcelona Synchrotron Park neighboring park, could send to the borders of the atmospheric space (altitude of 28 km) an Earth imaging nano satellite with infrared cameras designed to detect fires.
This successful round-trip flight has allowed the Spanish start-up company Aistech to test the internal systems and the structural resistance of its Aistechsat 1 satellite. A new test flight is scheduled for September.
According to the information released by Zero 2 Infinity on late July 21, this flight held in Barcelona on May 20 makes the company the first private European enterprise specialized in launching nano and micro satellites through its so-called Bloostar project.
Zero 2 Infinity has been operating for 6 years in the aerospace sector developing and standardizing in different current projects high-level flight capabilities with stratospheric balloons.
PS: Zero 2 Infinity appears in the Barcelona Synchrotron Park video.
This successful round-trip flight has allowed the Spanish start-up company Aistech to test the internal systems and the structural resistance of its Aistechsat 1 satellite. A new test flight is scheduled for September.
According to the information released by Zero 2 Infinity on late July 21, this flight held in Barcelona on May 20 makes the company the first private European enterprise specialized in launching nano and micro satellites through its so-called Bloostar project.
Zero 2 Infinity has been operating for 6 years in the aerospace sector developing and standardizing in different current projects high-level flight capabilities with stratospheric balloons.
PS: Zero 2 Infinity appears in the Barcelona Synchrotron Park video.
22/07/2016
Latest SENER News From Space and the Sun
Latest SENER News From Space and the Sun
Let’s take the opportunity of the latest issue of the Noticias magazine from SENER, the engineering multinational whose Catalan head office is situated in the Barcelona Synchrotron Park to review the recent events of the company, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary.
The magazine highlights, among other things, the contributions of SENER teams in Spain and Poland to the Euclid probe, which will be mapping “dark Space”; and the ATHENA mission, whose advanced telescope will explore the Universe’s high-energy areas. Noticias also singles out the recent awarding of SENER equipment for the Copernicus satellite and the JUICE mission, the latter designed to broaden our knowledge of Jupiter and its moons.
SENER activities in the energy sector are also mentioned, especially in the field of solar thermal plants: SENER continues to strengthen its technological leadership, shown by the fact that it has participated in almost 50% of all such facilities built in the world.
Image: SENER - Artistic view of the future NOORo III solar thermal plant, in Morocco, with 1.2 Mm2 of solar field surface.
The magazine highlights, among other things, the contributions of SENER teams in Spain and Poland to the Euclid probe, which will be mapping “dark Space”; and the ATHENA mission, whose advanced telescope will explore the Universe’s high-energy areas. Noticias also singles out the recent awarding of SENER equipment for the Copernicus satellite and the JUICE mission, the latter designed to broaden our knowledge of Jupiter and its moons.
SENER activities in the energy sector are also mentioned, especially in the field of solar thermal plants: SENER continues to strengthen its technological leadership, shown by the fact that it has participated in almost 50% of all such facilities built in the world.
Image: SENER - Artistic view of the future NOORo III solar thermal plant, in Morocco, with 1.2 Mm2 of solar field surface.
16/07/2016
Les Dames de Cerdanyola
Les Dames de Cerdanyola
The 28th international congress of Corpus Vitrearum, the international organism for research on stained glass, took place in early July in Troyes (France). This event offers a good opportunity to talk about Les Dames de Cerdanyola, a stained glass presented during the meeting.
As part of its commitment to its territory, Barcelona Synchrotron Park bought 3 works of art for a global amount of 109,500 euros between 2007 and 2007. For the benefit of people, these works are deposited in the Museum of Art of the city of Cerdanyola inaugurated in 2009: Tití’s head, a Manolo Hugué’s scupture, Paller, a Joan de Vila’s painting and Les Dames de Cerdanyola.
Les Dames de Cerdanyola is a 3-large-panels (235x195 cm) stained glass made in the 1910s. According to Joan Vila, it was created by the Alsacian glass master Ludwig von Bearn installed in Barcelona in the late 19th century but the authorship is still a mystery.
This work of art is representative of the Catalan Modernisme artistic movement and the cultural importance of Cerdanyola at that time and during the Noucentisme, a Catalan cultural movement of the early 20th century that originated largely as a reaction against Modernisme. By the way, between October 2015 and April 2016 the stained glass was exposed at the famous La Pedrera Gaudi’s house in an exhibition on Modernisme visited by almost 100,000 people.
Every year in Barcelona, Modernisme attracts millions of tourists that come to visit La Pedrera, La Casa Batlló or El Palau de la Música. In Cerdanyola, a few kilometers away from there, Les Dames de Cerdanyola offers a beautiful example of an unknown but valuable modernism work of art that awaits you!
As part of its commitment to its territory, Barcelona Synchrotron Park bought 3 works of art for a global amount of 109,500 euros between 2007 and 2007. For the benefit of people, these works are deposited in the Museum of Art of the city of Cerdanyola inaugurated in 2009: Tití’s head, a Manolo Hugué’s scupture, Paller, a Joan de Vila’s painting and Les Dames de Cerdanyola.
Les Dames de Cerdanyola is a 3-large-panels (235x195 cm) stained glass made in the 1910s. According to Joan Vila, it was created by the Alsacian glass master Ludwig von Bearn installed in Barcelona in the late 19th century but the authorship is still a mystery.
This work of art is representative of the Catalan Modernisme artistic movement and the cultural importance of Cerdanyola at that time and during the Noucentisme, a Catalan cultural movement of the early 20th century that originated largely as a reaction against Modernisme. By the way, between October 2015 and April 2016 the stained glass was exposed at the famous La Pedrera Gaudi’s house in an exhibition on Modernisme visited by almost 100,000 people.
Every year in Barcelona, Modernisme attracts millions of tourists that come to visit La Pedrera, La Casa Batlló or El Palau de la Música. In Cerdanyola, a few kilometers away from there, Les Dames de Cerdanyola offers a beautiful example of an unknown but valuable modernism work of art that awaits you!
08/07/2016
The ALBA Synchrotron reveals the inside of hepatitis C-infected cells
The ALBA Synchrotron reveals the inside of hepatitis C-infected cells
There are now about 150 million people in the world infected with hepatitis C, a disease that can lead to serious liver problems and is currently the leading cause of the need for liver transplants.
Researchers at the Centro Nacional de Biotecnología of the CSIC (CNB-CSIC) and the ALBA Synchrotron have now looked inside an infected cell in three dimensions and seen how the virus greatly distorts some of its structures. The study has been recently published in the scientific journal ACS Nano.
In addition, the authors observed that some of the antiviral drugs most commonly used to treat hepatitis C (daclatasvir + sofosbuvir) can reverse these structural alterations
To generate this 3D map, the scientists used synchrotron light at ALBA. With the MISTRAL beamline, they used a new technique called soft X-ray cryo-tomography (cryo-SXT). This method can obtain 3D images of the entire cell in its natural state, that is, without chemical pretreatment, cutting or drying the cell.
"With this technique – now only available in four places in the world (the ALBA Synchrotron, Bessy synchrotron in Germany, Diamond in the UK and ALS in the United States) – we can do a tomogram of the cell (similar to a conventional CT scan but with a million times more resolution)", says Ana Joaquina Pérez-Berná, scientist at the ALBA Synchrotron and first author of the article.
Congratulations!
News based on the press release published by the ALBA Synchrotron
Researchers at the Centro Nacional de Biotecnología of the CSIC (CNB-CSIC) and the ALBA Synchrotron have now looked inside an infected cell in three dimensions and seen how the virus greatly distorts some of its structures. The study has been recently published in the scientific journal ACS Nano.
In addition, the authors observed that some of the antiviral drugs most commonly used to treat hepatitis C (daclatasvir + sofosbuvir) can reverse these structural alterations
To generate this 3D map, the scientists used synchrotron light at ALBA. With the MISTRAL beamline, they used a new technique called soft X-ray cryo-tomography (cryo-SXT). This method can obtain 3D images of the entire cell in its natural state, that is, without chemical pretreatment, cutting or drying the cell.
"With this technique – now only available in four places in the world (the ALBA Synchrotron, Bessy synchrotron in Germany, Diamond in the UK and ALS in the United States) – we can do a tomogram of the cell (similar to a conventional CT scan but with a million times more resolution)", says Ana Joaquina Pérez-Berná, scientist at the ALBA Synchrotron and first author of the article.
Congratulations!
News based on the press release published by the ALBA Synchrotron
30/06/2016
The Bioinformatics Barcelona Initiative
The Bioinformatics Barcelona Initiative
The recent presentation of its website offers an opportunity to present the new Bioinformatics Barcelona (BIB) initiative.
The region of Catalonia and its capital, Barcelona, is one of the most important bioregions in Europe. Among its 734 companies (42,000 workers, € 14.4 billion turnover) and 89 research organizations (5,500 researchers), many of them have an activity related to bioinformatics.
BIB was established to gather all the Catalan bioinformatics players to meet the need for generating synergies between biology and computer science, for a stronger union between these areas, and for the development of high-quality education and training programs in the creation of bioinformatics talent. BIB is supported by the government of Catalonia and “la Caixa” banking foundation.
Constituted in 2015, BIB currently gathers 33 partners related to the bioinformatics sector (9 companies, 5 health research centers, 8 research centers in other fields, 10 universities, the Barcelona Supercomputer) that develop their activities within the health, agrifood and technology sectors.
Regarding training, one of BIB's key strategic areas, two BIB-driven projects are already well in place and deserve to be mentioned:
The region of Catalonia and its capital, Barcelona, is one of the most important bioregions in Europe. Among its 734 companies (42,000 workers, € 14.4 billion turnover) and 89 research organizations (5,500 researchers), many of them have an activity related to bioinformatics.
BIB was established to gather all the Catalan bioinformatics players to meet the need for generating synergies between biology and computer science, for a stronger union between these areas, and for the development of high-quality education and training programs in the creation of bioinformatics talent. BIB is supported by the government of Catalonia and “la Caixa” banking foundation.
Constituted in 2015, BIB currently gathers 33 partners related to the bioinformatics sector (9 companies, 5 health research centers, 8 research centers in other fields, 10 universities, the Barcelona Supercomputer) that develop their activities within the health, agrifood and technology sectors.
Regarding training, one of BIB's key strategic areas, two BIB-driven projects are already well in place and deserve to be mentioned:
- Vocational and Training Education (VET) of computer technicians with bioinformatics skills: pioneering studies implemented since the 2015-16 academic year at the Institut Provençana and Gimbernat Formació.
- Interuniversity Bachelor's Degree in bioinformatics: this 3-year course of studies, taught entirely in English, will be jointly imparted from September 2016 by the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and the University of Barcelona (UB).
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