The Science Library of “Realfagbygget” organizes every semester a series of popular science talks, entitled “Kunnskapseplet”, offering an arena for students, PhDs, researchers and other staff to talk about their work or other any topic they want to discuss about.

My PhD project is focused on the systematic revision of the family Orbiniidae (Annelida) using mitochondrial genomes and nuclear RNA gene clusters along with morphological analyses. Once the results were generated and the consequent discussion started, I wanted to take the opportunity to discuss, in a talk at the Science Library, about one of the main topics of my PhD: the mitochondrial genome and its use in systematics. So, I contacted the library and we arranged a talk on the 28.09.2023 with the name “What can the mitochondria reveal about evolution?”.

I opened the talk with the concept of evolution in Pokémon!, and later I used the analogy of asking any kind of information to a person, the same way in systematics we are asking evolutionary information to the mitochondria. Photos: Nataliya Budaeva.

On the day of the talk, the library workers decorated the entrance of the library with books related with the topic of the talk, and even a showcase with images of mitochondria and the poster of the talk!. Students, PhDs and researchers from “Realfagbygget” and other faculties belonging to the University of Bergen assisted to my talk, as well as visitors coming from other institutions outside academia, which gave me the feeling of transmitting knowledge to a wide audience.

Decorations at the entrance of the library and audience of the event. Photos: Kjersti Hasle and Nataliya Budaeva.

I highly recommend giving a talk at the Science Library if you want to communicate your work out of your job circle.

You can find information about “Kunnskapseplet” here: https://www.uib.no/en/ub/123688/kunnskapseplet

-Miguel Meca