Stranger in a Strange Land: Part IV, Scifoo ‘08 Day 3

The last day of Scifoo camp, now a full week later, has sessions from 9:30 AM until noon, then lunch and a wrap up session at 2 PM.

I was still laughing about Brian’s session the night before, as my mind turned to mush listening to a full day’s worth of sessions and talking shop in between with strangers and new friends, not to mention staying up past my bedtime two nights in a row.

I was pointed in the direction of Brian Malow’s “science” routine on YouTube, more representative of his routine last night:

Sunday’s first session was presented by Saul Griffith. I had happened to leave my laptop charging on a table in the main room Saturday and when I came back Saul and a couple of other people were sitting at the table, so I decided to veg and see what they were up to. I didn’t realize Saul’s celebrity status until talking with Joseph Jackson in the hotel lobby after camp. Seemed like your typical Kiwi (oops, Aussie) to me, but others had been somewhat intimidated by talking with him, or his lovely wife Arwen, because they’re in the O’Reilly crib. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss, I guess. I was continually amazed at Scifoo, just reading a name tag and then googling the name. It seems like half the people I searched have either their own wikipedia page or a YouTube on their TED talk. Amazing.

Anyway, Saul gave a talk about “Energy Audit“, in which he performed a “balance sheet” on his personal energy consumption as well as global supply (very similar to the linked talk from the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, San Diego, CA, March 4, 2008). An interesting talk, but I can’t help thinking that there is something fundamentally missing from the premise. After all, the alternative is global doom and gloom in another 25 years and I believe that the Earth is much more resilient, but don’t have any specific data to back that claim up. His talk, more than anything, has convinced me I need to rethink my take on the situation. he clearly impressed Stanford’s Global Warming guru Steve Schneider.

Next was a very interesting talk by Shelley Batts about cochlear regeneration. It was very good research, but she went on to talk about her ideas for improving cochlear implants, which was really interesting. I am sworn to secrecy about the nature of these improvements, but she is successful (which I have every certainty she shall be), it will be a major breakthrough in curing deafness. Amazing, just trust me.

There was a third session on Sunday morning, but I was spent and decided to skip it, instead spending my time outside smoking and talking with Jeff Marrongelle about Frederick and Ft Detrick.

Then I had a most interesting lunch with Lee Smolin, Steve Hsu and Shane Curruth. What started as just another lunch at Scifoo (me again picking a table of innocent enough looking strangers to break bread with), turned into some interesting conversation about martial arts and then film making. I should’ve picked theoretical physicist Lee Smolin’s brain on the String Theory, but recalled Steve had mentioned jujitsu and MMA in his intro, so we talked about that for a while. Then we started on Shane and I found yet another amazing story in him. His independant film, Primer, won the 2004 Sundance film festival. A lot of technical talk about cameras and such, but then I asked if he was hanging out at the hotel (or something to that effect, since scifoo was wrapping up and I was looking to have a drink with someone after words). Shane was catching a plane later in the day because he had an appointment with Steven Spielberg in LA on Monday. On the set of Universal Studios. But he’d already been there as Spielberg’s guest during the filming of Oceans 13, so it wasn’t a big deal. Just another lunch at Scifoo.

The closing ceremonies wrapped up Scifoo ‘08 and we all headed back to the hotel or scattered to some other destination (like Spielberg’s manse). ON the bus back, I had an interesting conversation with Sebastian Seung, a Professor of Computational Neuroscience at MIT. He’d shown a very interesting 3D model of a brain slice in the closing ceremonies. I told him he should look into mitochondrial migration as a potential neuronal mechanism. Maybe the most intelligent thing I did all weekend.

Just when you thought it was all over. I was lounging in the atrium at the hotel to see who was still around, to say good bye to Attila & Chris (head for San Francisco for the night) and chatting with Shelley, who was waiting for her friend Aaron to come pick her up. He’s a Grad student and part-time writer for Wired. I met and decided to go have a drink next door with Eric, NINDS Director of the Brain Stimulation Unit. It turns out the bar next door was desperate need of ambiance, so we grabbed a quick drink and then slinked out before one of the other patrons noticed that we were definitely out of place and not looking for a fight.

Back to the hotel, the famous Jaron Lanier shows up with an entourage. I had no idea who he was, but he was obviously someone important. Aaron the Wired writer had arrived, too. He’d just finished submitting a piece on Fruit Fly Semen Proteomics. “In the 1960s researchers noticed that female fruit flies would refuse to mate once they had come into contact with seminal fluid. That observation has tremendously important evolutionary implications. If a male fly can keep his girlfriends loyal by ejaculating in them, he will ensure that his genes are passed on to the next generation.”

That seems like a fitting story to end my Long Strange Trip at Scifoo on. First time I had been to California since 1972. It was a fascinating experience. So many stories, so many “Rock Star Scientists”, but there’s no place like home.