conferences
jstemwedel | October 25, 2007As mentioned before, I'm currently at the Southeast Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society (or SERMACS if you're in a hurry) in Greenville, South Carolina. I got in last night, just in time to catch the last 25 minutes or so of Dick Zare's plenary address on "The Chemistry of Propulsion".
Where I arrived was when he put up the slide that asked, "Is Global Warming Happening?"
Having looked closely at the published research, Zare's answer was, not surprisingly, "It sure seems to be!"
He then followed with some consideration of whether global warming is good or bad. Of course,…
clock | October 25, 2007There are 86 days until the Science Blogging Conference. The wiki is looking good, the Program is shaping up nicely, and there is more and more blog and media coverage already. There are already 105 registered participants and if you do not register soon, it may be too late once you decide to do so (we'll cap at about 230). Between now and the conference, I am highlighting some of the people who will be there, for you to meet in person if you register in time.
Science is not just physics, chemistry and biology. There are also psychology, anthropology, archaeology, economics, etc. And…
clock | October 23, 2007A quick update on the Milwaukee events....
The first time I went to Mocha's (much better wifi than the hotel and it is free) I saw a familiar face walk in - from Scifoo! World is small. She promised to come to the Science Blogging Conference (I am leaving the name out so not to play Gotcha later if she manages not to come in January). Jean-Claude, Janet, Christina Pikas and I went to dinner at Water Street Brewery last night - all four of us will meet again in January at the Science Blogging Conference. Janet, Jean-Claude and I had lunch at 105-year old German Mader's Restaurant. Back at…
jstemwedel | October 23, 2007I'm blogging from the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science and Technology in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This morning, I was part of a session (along with Bora Zivkovic and Jean-Claude Bradley) entitled "Opening Science to All: Implications of Blogs and Wikis for Social and Scholarly Scientific Communication". I thought I'd make a few brief comments about the session while my impressions are still fresh, but I reserve the right to say more later.
First off, for an 8:30 AM session, I was pretty impressed with the turnout. There were probably about 55 people in the…
clock | October 21, 2007There are 90 days until the Science Blogging Conference. The wiki is looking good, the Program is shaping up nicely, and there is more and more blog and media coverage already. There are already 96 registered participants and if you do not register soon, it may be too late once you decide to do so (we'll cap at about 230). Between now and the conference, I am highlighting some of the people who will be there, for you to meet in person if you register in time.
Liz Allen is the Director of Marketing and Business Development at Public Library of Science and she would love it if you joined the…
clock | September 19, 2007Just a reminder - watch out as I am now getting into that mode when I get on everyone's nerves with promoting the conference almost daily - that there are now 60 amazing people already registered for the conference, so you should register soon, before we reach the cap. Don't forget to sign yourself for the Friday dinner as well. The Program is getting closer and closer to its final shape. We'll need volunteers (especially local drivers) and we'll be glad to get additional sponsors if your organization is interested.
jstemwedel | August 15, 2007As I mentioned in my last post, I was sucked out of the blogosphere for much of last week by the International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry (ISPC) 2007 Summer Symposium .
I did not live-blog the conference. I did use overheads. Why, other than being a tremendous Luddite, would I use overheads?
One big issue that has me using overheads rather than PowerPoint presentations is time. As many conferences are, this one was scheduled within an inch of its life. Each speaker had 20 minutes to talk and 5 minutes at the end for questions and answers. Indeed, if the previous speaker…
jstemwedel | July 24, 2007Let's say you're looking at a wide-open fall semester, and you are asked to be a participant on a panel at a conference. Since your semester is wide open, you agree.
Months later, you're asked to be a participant on another panel at another conference. Except for the conference you already committed to, your semester is still wide open.
What do you suppose the chances are that the two conferences overlap in time? And meet in different cities? Was this predictable, or am I just lucky?
(It looks like the two panels will meet on different days. Assuming no plane-grounding weather events, it…
evolgen | June 29, 2007After driving through the night, we got home from Halifax this morning. The SMBE meeting was excellent as usual, and I agree with Dan Hartl that it's the best meeting for evolutionary genetics. With excellent talks and posters on topics ranging from population genetics to comparative genomics (and many people discussing both and everything in between in a single 15 minute talk), it's hard to find a better meeting.
I also had the opportunity to meet Rosie Redfield, John Logsdon, Jason Stajich, Reed Cartwright, and Jacob Tennessen. We got together for dinner, along with Professor Steve Steve,…
evolgen | June 23, 2007When this post appears, I'll be on the road to Halifax for the SMBE meeting. That's right -- on the road. As in an 18 hour drive. I'm not doing it alone, mind you. It's me and ten other grad students and post-docs packed into two vans. And we're not doing the whole thing in one stretch -- not everyone is hardcore enough for that -- so we're spending Saturday night in Bangor, Maine. I guess that's probably for the best because it would totally suck if we're already burnt out by the first day of the meeting.
Anyway, for those of you going to the meeting, I'll see you in Halifax. We're planning…
evolgen | June 5, 2007
This year's meeting of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution will take place at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia (conference webpage). I'm going, and so are Reed Cartwright and Jason Stajich. Additionally, Rosie Redfield and John Logsdon have each been invited to give a talk at the conference. As you can see, there will be a blogger presence at the meeting.
Are you going to the conference? If you are (whether you're a blogger or not), you should join the SMBE 2007 group on the Nature Network. And if you haven't already signed up for the Nature Network (it's like…
evolgen | March 15, 2007This post is part of a series documenting Professor Steve Steve's recent visit to Philadelphia for the Drosophila Research Conference (aka, the Fly Meeting).
Professor Steve Steve had a wild Saturday night. He was quite happy to have met leaders in the fields of evo-devo, population genetics, and genomics. Of course, Steve Steve is a pioneer in popula-devo-geno-metrics, so everything that came up in discussion was old-hat to him. That said, it was definitely a night to remember. And a morning to forget.
Pictures of Steve Steve at the Sunday plenary session and on the drive home can be found…
evolgen | March 14, 2007This post is part of a series documenting Professor Steve Steve's recent visit to Philadelphia for the Drosophila Research Conference (aka, the Fly Meeting).
In the previous two installments of Steve Steve in Philly, we finally managed to meet up despite the best efforts of the staff at the Marriott to prevent our rendezvous, and we got Steve Steve up to date on the newest developments in fly pushing and Drosophila genetics. It had been quite a tiring day, so we ventured down to the hotel bar for a few drinks. Some of us were ready to hit the sack, but Steve Steve would have none if it; he…
evolgen | March 13, 2007This post is part of a series documenting Professor Steve Steve's recent visit to Philadelphia for the Drosophila Research Conference (aka, the Fly Meeting).
After tracking down Steve Steve in the lobby of the hotel on Saturday, we picked up some food at the Reading Terminal Market -- a permanent sort-of-farmers-market next to the Philly Convention Center. The place was pretty packed, due in part to the Flower Show going on next door. Steve Steve was a little bummed that he didn't have time to check out any of the garden displays -- being an amateur horticulturalist and developer of the…
evolgen | March 12, 2007
What a weekend! Professor Steve Steve and I returned from Philadelphia on Sunday after hanging out with the Drosophilists. Steve arrived in Philly on Thursday morning on a direct flight from Iowa City, but the staff at the Philadelphia Marriott couldn't understand his thick accent when he asked that they notify me of his arrival. The little guy wandered the lobby of the hotel until Saturday morning, when I found him nibbling on the flamboyant floral display. That wasn't the only thing the Marriott screwed up.
More stories and pictures can be found below the fold.
Why the Marriott sucks:…
evolgen | March 4, 2007The word on the streets is that there used to be a blog at this URL (pronounced like the mountain range separating Europe from Asia). If this were a blog, however, it would be updated often and definitely not left dormant for over two weeks. All I can say is that meth is a hell of a drug. But fear not readers, I have reemerged from a research induced vanishing act, and I'll be blogging with some vigor for the near future (the specific amount of vigor cannot be guaranteed or measured with anything resembling an acceptable level of accuracy). In fact, I've got a long post -- filled with all the…
jstemwedel | January 22, 2007
While I'm readjusting to my own time zone (just in time for the start of spring semester -- whee!), I thought I'd share some pictures from the Science Blogging Conference. Here, for example, is intrepid conference organizer Bora Zivkovic. He could have sat back and just enjoyed his pre-conference dinner, but instead he stayed busy taking pictures and circulating to greet the conference-goers and find out what was going on with them. Actually, in real life Bora seems a bit more laid-back than he does on his blog. Still, compared to my typical energy level? He could be a hummingbird.…
jstemwedel | January 21, 2007The wifi at the hotel is a little tentative, so I'll save detailed posting about the Science Blogging Conference until I'm back on the west coast. In the meantime, I wanted to note some of the questions raised in various sessions during the conference:
Is it enough (for the good of scientists and/or society) for the population at large to think science is cool, or is it also important that most people have at least a basic understanding of science?
What's the deal with scientific publishing and the news cycle? In particular, is it scientists, scientific journal editors, the traditional…
jstemwedel | January 20, 2007I promised the folks who were listening to my talk at the Science Blogging Conference that I'd post the links to the various blog posts whose screenshots I used to illustrate my points. Here they are:
Results of "tone deafness" test published.
Reversal of Progress on Folate Supplementation
First take on a Philosophy of Science elective
Republicans made science for-profit only
ToI on reforming India's R&D
RNA Export Diagram
Gene Expression Differences between Populations
Hawaii, the New York Times, and triggered seismicity
The human factor.
Does circadian clock regulate clutch-size in…
jstemwedel | January 19, 2007Bora just said, "There are twenty bloggers here. Who's live blogging the dinner?!"
I guess the answer is: Me.
Although really, it's not like I can give a comprehensive account of the dinner, since I've mostly been sitting here conspiring with Bill Hooker and Zuska about ways to change the culture of science for the better. Given the importance of that task, I think it's almost worth missing the conversations at the other end of our table, and at the other table. (As Bill notes: The problem with these conference dinners is that there are approximately 400 conversations going on, and you…