Selected outreach initiatives and media interactions
General audience talks and media interactions are not listed exhaustively below.
Selected outreach initiatives
2016-2023: for a detailed accounting of outreach actions and institutional build-up in my capacity of director of the Institute of Space Sciences, see this summary.
2023: I established the Institute of Space Sciences Debate Series, where different opinions on issues of interest for the scientific community and society in general are presented.
2022 - today: I co-created the site 'The pulsar tree' for the analysis of the pulsar population using tools of graph theory
2022: I wrote a 'Behind the paper' article for Nature Astronomy blog, 'Persistence and luck'
2022: Participated in the cycle "Seminarios Científicos Liceu Politècnic Sant Cugat del Vallès", of outreach talks at secondary school
2021 - 2025: I promoted, within the Magnet initiative, connecting the Institute of Space Sciences with a societally-challenged primary school in Igualada, Barcelona for a sustained, multi-year program on STEM.
2016: I established the Institute of Space Sciences Summer School. The school is celebrated every July since then.
2016: I established the Institute's Annual Strategy Retreats, a series of 2-3 days internal meetings to discuss the research done at the institute and its future directions.
2018: I wrote a 'Behind the paper' article for Nature Astronomy blog, 'The road less travelled'
2016: I co-organized the event ‘Testimoni del Temps: La visio de l’univers a l’Edat Mitjana’, a series of conferences on the universe awareness in the middle ages, at the Sant Cugat Monastery
2013 - today: I maintain a Twitter account to release news of my research: @DFT_Research.
2012 - 2015: I founded the outreach project Pulsars @ Barcelona, a blog commenting on the results of the grant ‘Understanding the pulsar zoo’ to the general public. The blog was active for 3 years all along the grant duration. I wrote several entries for it along these years.
2010 - 2020: I created the 'Sant Cugat Forum on Astrophysics', a logistic and scientific framework designed to host international meetings of scientists, with more than 500 scientists visiting in six workshop sessions. In this framework, I organized and gave several public talks at the Casa de Cultura de Sant Cugat and the Sant Cugat Monastery, in the context of the activities of the Sant Cugat Forum of Astrophysics. These include the Forum Inaugural Act (April 12, 2010), presided by the Sant Cugat Major, at the Sant Cugat's Teatre Auditori, and containing a Public talk by. Prof. Jocelyn Bell-Burnell that was simultaneously translated into Catalan, and attended by 550 persons. I printed and distributed 18000 triptychs (in Catalan) about the Forum, the talks, and pulsars. I gave an outreach talk to high-school teachers of Sant Cugat about the basics of pulsars, who later used it to explain the topic to their students.
Selected media interactions
These are some comments that were published in the general press where my research or activity was mentioned, other interviews, or press releases. Additional commentary by news agencies, with similar content, are not listed. Press releases of my home institution(s) are not listed either.
2023 - Astronomers unravel a pulsar’s bizarre behaviour [paper]
2022 - HEAPOW - High-Energy Picture of the week: The pulsar tree [Paper]
2022 - HEAPOW - High-Energy Picture of the week: Radio pulsations from LS I +61 303 [Paper]
2022 - INAF, CSIC, IEEC, CAS, and others on Radio pulsations from LS I +61 303 [Paper]
Media in Spanish that covered the news included COPE, ABC Digital, Noticiero Científico y Cultural Iberoamericano, Diario de León, Espai Media, Colombia.com, NCYT, and was also mentioned in several radio shows from iberoamerica.
The news appeared in several oulets in chinese too.
2021 - Europa Press: Tres centros del CSIC obtienen distinciones Severo Ochoa y María de Maeztu de excelencia
National media in Spain covered the Excellence Award Maria de Maeztu obtained for the Institute of Space Sciences
2021 - TNG: Optical and ultraviolet pulsed emission from an accreting millisecond pulsar [Paper]
2021 - INAF: Il segnale UV e ottico che sfida i modelli delle pulsar [Paper]
2021 - NASA: Video on the discovery of GeV emission from a magnetar flare [Paper]
2021 - Science Magazine: Astronomers find signature of magnetar burst in nearby galaxy [Paper]
2021 - Nature News and Views: Cosmic electromagnetic bombs shed light on GRBs, by C. Thompson [Paper]
2021 - Nature Astronomy Behind the paper: High-energy emission from a magnetar giant flare, by N. Omodei [Paper]
The paper was echoed in many newspapers, blogs, and agencies worlwide, according to Nature Altmetrics.
2021 - Athena Nugget: Squeezing of the pulsar wind nebula
2020 - DESY: Strange gamma-ray heartbeat puzzles scientist - Animation and Figure [Paper]
2020 - Arecibo: Arecibo Observatory Data Help Lead to Discovery of Cosmic ‘Heartbeat’ [Paper]
2020 - Nature Astronomy Behind the paper: The heart of darkness, by J. Li [Paper]
2020 - Nature Astronomy News and Views: Gamma-ray echoes from SS433, by P. Bordas [Paper]
2020 - HEAPOW - High-Energy Picture of the week: A nebula's gamma-ray heartbeat [Paper]
2020 - APOD - Astronomical Picture of the day: SS 433 Microquasar [Paper]
The paper was echoed in more than a hundred newspapers, blogs, and agencies worldwide, according to Nature Altmetrics (which qualified this paper in the top-5% more impacting papers in the journal) and Google. A few random examples follow:
2020 - New York Times: A rip in the fabric of interestellar dreams [Paper]
2020 - Astronomy now: Researchers find gas cloud pulsing in synch with distant microquasar [Paper]
2020 - La Vanguardia: Un extraño latido desconcierta a los científicos [Paper]
2020 - ABC: Detectan una misteriosa señal intermitente en una nube de gas de la galaxia [Paper]
2020 - La Nación: Un llamativo latido que proviene del cosmos desconcierta a los científicos [Paper]
2020 - TN: Un latido espacial desconcierta a los científicos [Paper]
2020 - SciFy: The hearbeat of a black hole head in space for the first time ever [Paper]
2020 - LeScienze: La strana pulsacione gamma di una nube cosmica [Paper]
2020 - Popular Science: These two celestial bodies share a heartbeat, puzzling scientists [Paper]
2020 - People's Magazine: Scientists Find Mysterious ‘Heartbeat’ in Galactic Gas Cloud — and Twitter Jokes ‘Galactus Is Coming!’ [Paper]
2019 - ESA (also INAF / TNG and others): Mysteriously in-sync pulsar challenges existing theories [Paper]
2018 - ESA: New method pinpoints previously unnoticed pulsar radiation [Paper]
2018 - La Vanguardia: Desarrollan un modelo teórico que avanza en el conocimiento de los púlsares [Paper]
2018 - El Periódico: Desarrollan un modelo teórico que avanza en el conocimiento de los púlsares [Paper]
2018 - Athena: Athena will reveal many unknown pulsars [Paper]
2018 - Nature Astronomy: Rainbow pulsars (M. Karouzos) [Paper]
2018 - INTEGRAL Picture of the Month [Paper]
2018 - Radio Program 'Principio de Incertidumbre': Interview (03/12/2018)
2018 - HEAPOW - High Energy Picture of the week: Extreme in the fields [Paper]
2017 - RTVE: Featured in TV Show, Lab 24 (interview, 17/05/2017)
2016 - La Vanguardia: Observan la luz con más energía jamás vista desde un púlsar [Paper]
2015 - Physics Org: Magnetar near supermassive black hole delivers surprises [Paper]
2014 - Astronomy Now (also / FECYT / SINC / Science Daily, and others, all with a similar title): Pulsars with black holes could hold the holy grail of gravity [Paper]
2014 - ABC: Buscan un púlsar con un agujero negro para verificar la teoría de la relatividad de Einstein [Paper]
2013 - DiCYT : Hallado el púlsar más cercano a un agujero negro supermasivo [Paper]
2013 - SINC : Hallado el púlsar más cercano a un agujero negro supermasivo [Paper]
2013 - Elsevier: Announcing the launch of the Journal of High Energy Astrophysics
2013 - Science Magazine: Editor choice: Superorbital Variability [Paper]
2013 -ESA / NASA / NRAO: Missing link found between X-ray and radio pulsars (covered worldwide in dozens of media) [Paper]
2013 - NASA: Astronomers discover a transformer pulsar [Paper]
2013 - NRAO: ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ Star Morphs from Radio to X-ray Pulsar and Back Again [Paper]
2013 - ESA: Pulsar caught in evolutionary change (video) [Paper]
2013 - Cern Courier: Volatile pulsar validates theory [Paper]
2013 - Diari de Sant Cugat (profile interview, 01/09/2013)
2012 - UAB Divulga: Descubren un nuevo sistema binario de rayos gamma en la galaxia
2012 - Science Magazine: Editor choice: Magnetic radio stars [Paper]
2011 - El Mundo: Chorros de energía en la nebulosa del Cangrejo
2010 - Feature in the award-winning documentary 'El Universo Extremo', by M. Soto, projected in TV and a significant number of Spanish high-schools
2010 - Recercat: Profile interview
2010 - APOD - Astronomical Picture of the day: Fermi first gamma-ray catalog
2010 - Physics Today: Gamma-ray telescopes show origins of cosmic rays [Paper] [Paper]
2009 - Physics Today: Seeing cosmic-ray sources [Paper]
2009 - APOD - Astronomical Picture of the day: Fermi gamma-ray pulsars
2009 - Science: Cover for several Fermi discoveries on pulsars, among them the first globular cluster 47 Tuc. The original papers in Science were commented in many newspapers and news agencies worlwide.
2009 - Cadena Ser Radio: Las explosiones más brillantes del universo
2009 - NASA: Fermi Telescope Detects Gamma-Rays From "Star Factories" in Other Galaxies [Paper]
2009 - HEAPOW: High Enegy Picture of the week: The LMC in gamma-rays
2009 - Symmetry Journal: Fermi telescope detects gamma rays from starburst galaxies
2009 - Diario Sabadell: Astrofísicos de Bellaterra participan el descubrimiento de nuevos púlsares (News of the day, page 2, August 27, 2009)
2008 - Diario Público: Estudian los rayos gamma para auscultar los latidos del cosmos
2008 - El País: Toda la violencia del cosmos estalla ante el GLAST
2008 - Público: Un ojo de rayos gamma para mirar el universo
2008 - NASA: I was featured in a video podcast presenting the GLAST (then Fermi) mission
2008 - APOD - Astronomical Picture of the day: A Dark Pulsar in CTA 1
2007 - El País: Los astronómos se preparan para saber más de fenómenos violentos (interview, 21/2/2007)
2006 - El País: Los científicos interpretan las radiaciones cósmicas con un enfoque multi-mensajero
2006 - Science Magazine: Very high energy gamma-rays fom microquasars (article by F. Mirabel, 312, Issue 5781, pp. 1759-1760) [Paper].
The original paper in Science was commented in many others newspapers and news agencies worlwide.
2006 - Cern Courier: MAGIC discovers variable very-high-energy gamma-ray emission from a microquasar [Paper]
2003 - Mercury: A conversation with a neutrino (article by C. Wanjet) [Paper]
2003 - Science Daily: Laboratory astrophysicist discover new source of neutrinos [Paper]
2003 - NASA: Neutron star neutrinos detectable at the south pole [Paper]
2002 - Science Magazine: Physicicst prepare to catch cosmic bullets (article by R. Irion, 296, Issue 5576, pp. 2134-2135) [Paper]
2003 - Pagina 12: Partículas fantasmas [Paper]
2002 - Astronomy now: In search of wormholes (article J. Al-Khalili, UK Issue, May 2002, p.63) [Paper]
2002 - Cern Courier: Remnants reveal origin of cosmic rays [Paper]
2002 - Physics World: Cosmic rays reveal their roots [Paper]
2001 - New Scientist, Wormholes may be lurking at the end of a very special rainbow (article by M. Chown, New Scientist 171, 2310, p11) [Paper]
1998 - New Scientist: About time (article by P. Parsons, Magazine #2127, published 28 March 1998) [Paper]