Recaps from the AAAS Conference

Interacting with other scientists is one of the best parts of attending conferences like these. With this being such a large multi-discipline conference, I'm meeting scientists, engineers and educators of every type.

In fact, I bumped into fellow science blogger ScienceGeekGirl at a lunch counter. Dr. Stephanie Chasteen is a Physicists and Science Education Consultant in real and virtual life. Actually I had met her a couple of years ago at a NSF Communicating Science Workshop in Lincoln, Nebraska. I remember her because she was working for the Exploratorium, a fabulous science center in San Francisco. I wanted to do what she was doing - Informal Science Education, but with Life Science. It's always great to meet a blogger in real life.

A special highlight was meeting Dr. Sue Carter. She is a fellow vole researcher and she studies the social relationships and hormone responses of prairie voles. I've read many of her papers.

Although the it is a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, its actually an international organization. I attended a few receptions that bring everyone together in a social setting and I've made some new friends as a result.

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My quest to get Al Gore to sign my copy of An Inconvenient Truth was dashed when I ended up in the overflow room for the talk. I ranted on about it. No matter, he flew in just moments before the talk, did not take questions and left immediately. However, the talk was fabulous! Check out what my friend Lyndell had to say about talk.

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And finally it was Dance time! I was pleasantly surprised when I heard voice call out my screen name - "Hey, there's DNLee". I looked around and there was the Gonzo Scientist himself. The creator of the "Dance Your Ph.D. Contest" right before my eyes. The dance interpretations of the winning videos were fabulous. I really don't have the words to describe it. As soon John makes the videos and photos available I will post the link because you must see it.

Congrats to the winners, whose YouTube videos were great in their own rights, too.