The researchers Susanna C. Manrubia and Damian H. Zannette have won the XVIII award for Scientific Divulgation General Study from the University of Valencia with the essay ‘Gens i Genealogies. Sobre la nostra herència cultural i biològica’. The award, worth 16.000 Euros financed by Bancaja, and was given by the Vice-Principal for Research and Science Policy from the University of Valencia, Pedro Carrasco, Friday at the gala ‘Premis Literaris Ciutat D’Alzira’ driven by the city council and Bromera Editions.
The gala was also held as a part of the celebration of the 14th Science Week, Technology and Innovation, sponsored by the Chair for Scientific Dissemination UCC and the University of Valencia.
In ‘Gens i genealogies’, which will be published in the collection ‘Sense Fronteres’, reflects on our cultural and biological characteristics with the aim to understand how certain regularities appear and undo some myths about the importance of our heritage. And is that our parents have given us a name and passed on surnames and many ancestors have mixed their genes to produce what every one of us carries on. But, how important is this legacy? Until which extent affects us?
“We, the authors of this work met fifteen years ago in Berlin. We soon discovered that we shared interests for the study of cultural patterns, including the organization of cities, the inheritance of surnames, the properties of genealogical trees or linguistics. Since then and despite residing in different continents we have published a dozen articles about these subjects”, argue Manrubia and Zannette. “At the moment we decided to write this work, a few years ago, we raised the need to reach the main public the results of our research and the reflections that this awakened in us” they added.
In relation with the award, Susanna C. Manrubia and Damian H. Zanette, explain that this represents for them “a happy culmination of this journey. We are happy and pleased, but we also recognize the interest that these topics awake in readers. The award is for us a vehicle that will allow us to disseminate our work and an important incentive to persevere in the essential activity of transmitting science to society”.
Susanna C. Manrubia (Barcelona, 1969) graduated in Physics at the University of Barcelona and she gets her PhD at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. She is researcher from the Astrobiology Centre (INTA-CSIC) in Madrid. She is interested in the mechanisms that govern biological evolution and cultural patterns. She has written two books and has published more than one hundred articles. On the other hand, Damian Zanette (Buenos Aires, 1963) studied Physics at the Institute Balseiro (Bariloche, Argentina). He is professor and researcher at the Atomic Centre Bariloche. He is interested in the application of statistical physics in biology, demography and linguistics. He is the author of more than one hundred forty scientific publications.
More information: www.uv.es/cdciencia
Last update: 12 de november de 2012 11:12.
News release
