SfN07: The schmoozery

Can’t let BM have all the SfN fun, now can we? I discussed scientific meeting schmoozing before. By the middle of the SfN meeting I see that I’ve had substantive chats with four relevant program officers and brief exchanges with two more. Two of the former got down to some nitty gritty over science in one case and science funding (yes, beyond “waaah, there’s no money”) in another. This is basically without trying although I did swing through the NIH booths at one point.

SfN07: The Wild Fires

I should have expected this. The search engine hits for various combinations of “San Diego”, “Fire”, “SFN”, “Society for Neuroscience” are starting to hit the blog. There does not appear to be anything posted at the official SfN 2007 website so I’ll try to relate anything I know that’s relevant to the meeting here. I imagine things will be changing rapidly in these early days of the fires.

SfN07: SfN Meeting data 2001-2006

Fascinating data on SfN meeting participation from 2001-2006 is available as a paper placed on arXiv.

An analysis of the abstracts presented at the annual meetings of the Society for Neuroscience from 2001 to 2006

Authors: J. M. Lin, J. W. Bohland, P. Andrews, G. Burns, C. B. Allen, P. P. Mitra

(Submitted on 12 Oct 2007 (v1), last revised 16 Oct 2007 (this version, v2))

I will always have to reference this as the place I picked up the concept that “we need to practice scientific birth control” in discussion of uninterrupted growth in the neuroscience community.

Other tidbits:

• 60% of abstract authors only attend a single meeting in the surveyed interval.
• average of 4.3 authors per abstract
• La Jolla is in the top ten in each year- Represent!
• no correlation between SfN attendance and NIH budget
• six degrees (actually 6.09) of separation confirmed for neuroscientists
• NIH ICs generally get what they pay for

SfN07: The Caffeinery

The whole point of going to coffee is, going to coffee. You know, getting up off your behind and walking away from your usual environment to think, proof a paper or really focus on discussions with colleagues. [Okay, that and getting your loading dose on. You can get your pharmacological hit from the stands inside the convention center but how much fun is that?] If you really need to “go to coffee”, there are options.

SfN07: Our weather sucks here

Apropos of starting to bear down on some social obligations for the Society for Neuroscience Annual meeting I’m reminded of something. Might be useful for those of you who think SD is an unrelenting paradise. Our weather is terrible.

SfN07: Fish Tacos

Today we inaugurate a new category of posts. The Society for Neuroscience is meeting in my fair city this year, as it does on a regular cycle. Presumably some of y’all will be coming to visit. I have some thoughts.