I Wish I Could Be There

The fifth Science Festival is going on right now in Genoa, Italy. It is a longish affair, from 25th October till 6th November, so if you just happen to be in the area you can still make it. They have hundredr of events, e.g., exhibitions, workshops, performances and shows, all related to science in some way and targeted at a broad audience, from children to senior scientists.

I wish I could attend the session on Rhythms of Life as well as the one on Where is Science Dissemination Going?:

Nowadays, almost 2/3 of press agency releases on scientific topics are based on news given by press offices. The development of public relations activities and the search for media visibility by research institutions are only two of the most important factors that have led to a change in the panorama of scientific public communication, thus influencing its field of research as well.

In the US, the number of people working in public relations is now far greater than the number of journalists; the Internet has now revolutionised both the chronological sequence and the solidity of those "filters" that formerly marked the milestones in the dissemination of results from the researcher to the wider public.
We need to look at these profound changes and at their mutual interactions in order to understand the role played by communication in modern science.

Perhaps there will be some kind of recording of the session, or I may be able to get a summary from someone. I'd like to know how many science bloggers are there in Italy. I know one of my posts was translated into Italian and posted on one of their blogs. So was one of Mo's posts. How organized are they? Do they meet up in Real Life sometimes? Anyone liveblogging the Science Festival?