BACK!!

That's the great thing about conferences. I've had similar surreal experiences witnessing some of the legends of protist evolution having spirited debates about this sort of thing. It's truly epic and amazing when it happens.

Worst part of last night's debate? The fact that we couldn't ask questions in real-time. I so wanted to ask my good friend and hero John McCain what the fuck he has against planetaria!

I work in an HIV lab in the University of Maryland system (but at a different institution than Gallo does), so when the news broke it was a bit of a big deal for us. It would have been nice to have another professor here with a Nobel Prize and the recognition would have been great, but beyond that we're all pretty evenly split on how we felt about the snub to Gallo.
It is a shame that they've reopened the wounds of that huge fight; Montagnier and Gallo had agreed to share credit for the discovery equally, so this really flies in the face of their decision. I just hope this decision was made because the committee honestly thought Montagnier was solely responsible for the discovery and not due to any scientific politics (We've all heard that Gallo can be an abrasive guy--that doesn't win you friends, but you can't argue that he's not an amazing scientist).
I'm waiting to see if there are any letters to the editor about this in Nature or Science. It'll be interesting to watch all the drama (a girl needs something to do during incubations!).

You are really forgetting the more important thing: von Hausen also got a share of the medicine nobel, for discovering that cervix carcinoma is caused by papillomaviruses. That's really important news for the women on this planet, also there is already a vaccine against this. He should have gotten the nobel alone. Maybe another one for Montagnier & Gallo the next year.

The conference seemed nice. I also want to go on some, but I'm still too undergraduate.

you gave the debate too much credit.... The video was actually done quite well.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, the first time I read "enchiladas," I thought it said "echidnas"--I read this:
http://www.lifeinthefastlane.ca/rare-long-beaked-echidna-discovered-and…

Debate - meh. It seemed to be an exercise in who was least evasive in answering direct questions. By that measure Obama - unsurprisingly - won.

Still, when old Gramps McNasty and Failin' Palin are on the GOP ticket, you've got to wonder why there's even a need for a debate at all...

Welcome back!:-)

Montagnier and Gallo are like two bumbling theives fighting over fake diamonds. Neither of them found the virus, neither of them proved that the virus was pathogenic in any scientific sense.

Glad that only 1 clown, not 2, got the Nobel!

We need to see some serious blogging on that viral evolution, ERV. I won't stop nagging you until you do it!

The more people say "planetaria", the more I think of flatworms.

Dunno who those guys were, but we don't want them, thank ya very much.

Glad you had so much fun. Sounds like you're a lot better at this stuff than I ever was (no surprise there).

C'mon, share with us what you and Mr. Vignuzzi learned over enchiladas about the probabilities of there being life on other planets!

ERV readers wanna know!

And as to tea with Luke Skywalker and Gene Kelly, this is as close as you'll most likely get: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4cloV35GiE&feature=related

So grab a mug and be amazed! It's around the 8:30 mark.

Surreal indeed.

Now, please spill about those probabilities!

I dont remember much (seriously, like a dream) but Valerian didnt think that we would find life on other planets/moons/asteroids/etc. Susanna was more optimistic :)

Yay Manrubia!

Thanks ERV!

Hi Abbie, I'm happy for you.

And yeah the Nobel Prize is odd isn't it... And coincidentally it came just a few days after the press conference in New York, with Janine Roberts' revelations about how the original papers linking HIV/AIDS together were fraudulent and so on:
AIDS Press Conference Release
HIV/AIDS Theory Originates From Fraud?

An interesting topic...

Abbie, did you see this over at PZ's blog? Wow....

I'm glad that the REAL brains behind the discovery of HIV got a Nobel gong, after all the political and legal to-ing and fro-ing between Montagnier and Gallo, which has been a bit of a yawn to those of us outside France and the US.

Congratulations to Professor Barre-Sinoussi. She is, as several Scienceblogs commentators have already noted, a class act. She was also, notably, the lead author of the seminal paper about the virus's isolation.