Day #8: Fiocruz

2/19/12

Even though Carnival was the bomb-dot-com, this Brazil adventure was certainly not going to stop there. Moving away from all the parties and pretty colors, we went on learned a little about Brazil’s new technologies and achievements through the company, Fiocruz. The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, otherwise known as Fiocruz, is a company dedicated to health science and technology and has been since 1908. Over 100 years ago! Since we couldn’t just meet this company on the street and shake its hand, we ended up visiting the Museum of Life which was quite entertaining. Most of the exhibits were about discoveries and topics that Fiocruz has researched. For example, we watched one video about how Fiocruz scientists developed the vaccine for blackleg, a disease that wiped out the country’s cattle. I only remember that because of the cow pen that you receive after leaving the station. When you click it moos like a real cow! Anyways, the exhibits were very memorable. The tour guide explained that Fiocruz is always informing the public of health science related issues/information and that’s why it’s so important. The last exhibit before the gift shop told us that Fiocruz is in the process of setting of a scientific computing center that will enable it to use high-performance computer algorithms for processing images, studying the makeup of molecules, manipulating huge databases, and studying the population dynamics of infectious diseases. This computing center will dramatically improve the efficiency and accuracy of the scientists. I guess we’ll just have to come back in a few years when it’s all finished.