Scifoo tid bit data dump

Some items I'd like to mention:

- before scifoo, there was a meetup of bloggers in the Bay Area. I finally placed some flesh over my electronic friends and got to meet some other bloggers. Andreas Engvig over at Sharpbrains has a photo. Bora has some more photos.

- one of the best conversations I had was after scifoo. On the train into SF, I sat next to Christopher Clark who studies how large wales whales communicate over long distances. If this sounds interesting, click here.

- here's a picture of Martin Rees, Freeman Dyson and me (it's really me, I swear!) ... and some other half hidden guy a half hidden Ed Boyden.

i-9b4d9ee65a37a801461855a9578a82eb-scifoo1.jpg

- although I spoke to Martha Stewart, I forgot to ask her if her paperless home had toilet paper. (If you want to know more about her paperless home, read Anna's open letter to Martha.)

- Paul Sereno showing us some cool stuff (and adding his 2 cents to the open access debate).

- Talking to Roger Brent then Andy Fire about my lab work - both were very supportive!

- biohacking - garage molecular biology is the future. Modularizing DNA functional components will help promote this technology. (Drew Endy) Will molecular biology be so simple that someday a disgruntled kid will construct some sort of lethal biological agent? (Greg Bear) Perhaps the shared knowledge between individuals will help prevent such a scenario? (Drew Endy) The greatest risk is not the biological agent, but the public's over-reaction. (many) But the political machine may be even more irrational. (Greg Bear)

- another topic of conversation: the lack of coverage of cell biology in science news despite the fact that our field is growing rapidly - heck we're in the golden age of cell science! So why do you rarely read about cells in the news? Is it too dull? or simply is there no big story (as some science journalists have told me)? or do the science journalists lack the background to appreciate that we are in the midst of a revolution? There were many "systems biologists" at the conference but only one or two talks on biological problems at the cellular level. Instead systems (i.e. computational) biologist were more foccused on the data analysis - I would have like to have seen more of an effort to try to understand what type of data these systems biologists are trying to get at. It seems like most computational guys don't understand the nature of the beast they are dealing with. If I had to do scifoo again I would have had a session on The Cell - What is the nature of the most complicated machine known to man (excluding perhaps the brain). Or I could have called it Understanding Molecular Vitalism.

More like this

As I predicted, bloggers have waited a day or two before they wrote much of substance abour Scifoo. First, you don't want to miss out on any cool conversations by blogging instead. Second, the experience is so intense, one needs to cool down, process and digest everything. Before I write my own…
Breakfast time! Professor Steve Steve decided to look around for Googleplex for scifoo celebrities....(under the fold): Anna Kushnir Duncan Hull Eva Vertes and Moshe Pritsker Greg Bear Freeman Dyson James Randi Martha Stewart Peter Murray-Rust Sara Abdulla
Finally got home - after a month! So nice to see my wife again, and my son (daughter is at the beach). Dog and two of the cats (Orange Julius and Biscuit) were very happy to see me - I'll find the third one later. I need to sleep. Scifoo is a 20h/day affair - getting up at 7am, eating Googleplex…
Last night I was invited to a Seed dinner in Cambridge. The idea, I guess, was to throw together scientists from various disciplines and Seed contributors, and observe the resulting chemical reaction. I had very interesting discussions with Drew Endy of MIT who is developing a molecular tool kit to…

Thanks BK, as you can tell spelling (and grammar) are not my strong points.

Alex, nice to meet you at the blogger-event. Sounds like you had a good time in Cali. and thanks for opening my eyes to biohacking concept.
Andreas