Final of FameLab Italia in Genoa: the talk on the abyss by Dattilo Francesco wins
Dattilo Francesco, PhD student in Life Sciences at the National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics of Trieste, is the winner of the national final of FameLab 2024 which took place on Sunday 27 October at the Teatro della Tosse in Genoa and with twenty-four finalists from all over Italy.
Dattilo is a scholar of plankton biodiversity with theoretical modeling approaches and brought to the competition a recent study published in Nature Geoscience by Andrew Sweetman – head of the seabed ecology research group at the Scottish Association for Marine Science in the United Kingdom – on the ecosystem balance of the abyss and the production of oxygen by polymetallic nodules, minerals with an electrical charge which split the molecular structure of water through electrolysis.
“Sweetman’s story fascinated me because he encountered many failures and critical issues before arriving at the result. In the popular video abstract he appeared as a simple person, in a tracksuit, a little sad and tired, not someone enthusiastic about the publication, and this struck me because I saw a humanity that I share in the role of science” these are the words of the young researcher after receiving the first prize awarded by the jury with the following motivation: “for having presented a very recent scientific result with clarity and charisma and at the same time having highlighted the famous ‘trial and error’, how a discovery can also come through failure and a wrong hypothesis”.
Second and third place went to Emine Tasan, a doctoral student in translational medicine at the University of Calabria, who spoke about the challenge of stopping breast cancer, and Martina Coletta, a doctoral student at the University of Camerino, who showed the audience the the existence of springtails, colorful arthropods “authors of miracles” that live in the soil of all gardens.
The public award went to Annarita De Maio, also a researcher at the University of Calabria, who discussed the work behind the click of the mouse when we organize our trips, mathematical solutions to have fast routes and super efficient algorithms .
Francesco Dattilo will represent Italy in the FameLab International final which will take place online on 29 November 2024.
The event is organized by Psiquadro in collaboration with the Genoa Science Festival, CNR – National Research Council and Cheltenham Science Festival.
