The University of Oviedo will celebrate a new edition of the Researchers' Night, under the slogan "Wake up in the Researchers' Night: Come to the Chemical Festival" (Despierta en la noche de los investigadores: Ven a la verbena de la Química". This event, organized by the Knowledge Transfer Office (OTRI) from the academic institution, will be held on the next Friday 23rd of September, from the 18:00h to 22:00, at the Receptions' Hall of Oviedo's City Hall.

Researchers' night is an action framed in PEOPLE programme from the European Seventh Framework Programme which has taken place simultaneously in different European cities since 2005. A scientific dissemination project for all kind of audiences which, through leisure and special activities, is trying to approach citizens to researcher image and all the benefits that their work bring to society.

This current edition will be composed by some interactive laboratories from which, nearly in one hour, researchers from the University of Oviedo will perform different scientific experiments. These are simple and attractive proposals, accessible to everyone, which illustrate very interesting scientific principles related to everyday's life:

• "Beauty Chemist". Our homes are a big store of chemical products which we use to clean ourselves, hydrate, make up or perfume. All these have been prepared for our care and welfare from more simple ones through the typical reactions and processes in a chemical lab. In this stand, we will learn to elaborate some of them such as soap, toothpaste, moisturizer and, why not, even perfume!
• Chemists and Cooks! : Some experiments will be done in order to see how similar kitchens and labs are. Chemistry provides knowledge about how things are and which is the influence of the different ingredients and operations applied in final results, allowing us to cook better. In this occasion, we are going to get profit of the diverse physic-chemical proprieties of eatable ingredients (comparable to the reactive elements in a chemistry's lab) to prove some scientific principles.
• Very minimal Chemistry: Through the use of an optical microscope connected to a computer, we will dive in the microscopic world of chemistry. For that purpose, we'll prepare sugar dissolution and we will see how it crystallizes thanks to a polarized light microscope. We will also use chemical compounds to dye vegetal and animal tissues in order to find out which is shown in the microscope. At last, we will identify the chemical compounds of a rock.
• Chemistry and medicines: Our house's medical kit: This workshop aims to explain the basic principle of chemistry with the common medicines which can be found in house's medical kit: aspirins, cold remedies, hydrogen peroxide, and antacids for the stomach.
• The colour of Chemistry: The usual image of a chemistry image, probably arisen by Hollywood films, usually means a place crowded with flasks and beakers filled with colourful, bubbling and steaming liquids. Through chemical games for children, we are used to seeing how two transparent dissolutions can create blue, red or brown liquids. Nevertheless, in the colour of Chemistry, we go beyond: we are not only going to see how colours appear in its more classical way but we will see a liquid whose colour is changing when the time passes by, a water bottle that changes its colour when it's shaken, candles whose flames are blue, green or red or even a tube that emits light like a firefly.
• Tasty molecules: Under the coordination of famous Spanish "chefs", recipes that seem to be taken from labs to kitchens have been developed. Two of the techniques which are often handled are the elaboration of foams so as to make "unstructured" or "deconstructed" recipes and the cooling by liquid nitrogen, to freeze faster and get structures as well as special effects. Yet we have created a tasty menu composed by:

  - Deconstructed omelette without cholesterol .

  - Popcorn made of tomato water.

  - Yogurt Ice Cream with soft fruit heart .

Furthermore, under the slogan "Draw a scientist" (Dibuja a un científico) a drawing contest has been organized for the youngest ones. Two categories have been established: from 6 to 10 years of age and from 11 to 14.