This page will contain information about the Friday portion about the program AND will also serve as the place for participants to organize their own events, lunch, carpooling, etc. Keep an eye on this spot – more will come soon.
Coffee Science
For Coffee Science, sign up here
Lab Tours
For Lab Tours, sign up here
Liveblog Friday Fermentable Wine Tasting – Solicitation of Interest
While we plan to serve some libations at the WiSE event (below) beginning at 7 pm, Abel Pharmboy is soliciting interest for a small (20 people) group to meet at Sigma Xi at 6-7 pm for an intimate wine tasting and liveblogging of his near-weekly blog feature, The Friday Fermentable. No knowledge of wine is necessary and Abel will provide the wine selections free-of-charge.
So as not to clutter this page with a sign-up list, please G-mail Abel directly at this dedicated e-mail address: fridayfermentable [at] gmail [dot] com or drop a comment to his blogpost on the event.
Women’s Networking Event
Registration for this event is now closed!
6:30pm Doors open
7-8pm Networking/desserts/local groups fair
8-9pm Keynote Speaker: Rebecca Skloot
“Women, science, and storytelling: The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks (a.k.a. HeLa), and one woman’s journey from scientist to writer “:
“Award winning writer Rebecca Skloot will speak about women in science journalism, her own journey from scientist to writer, and her forthcoming book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which tells the remarkable story of HeLa – the first immortal human cells ever grown in culture – and the woman they came from.
In 1951, doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital took a small sample of cervical cancer from a 30-year-old African American woman named Henrietta Lacks, without her knowledge or consent. A scientist put that sample into a test tube, and though Henrietta died a few months later, her cells – known worldwide as HeLa – became the first immortal human cell line ever grown in culture and one of the most important tools in medicine. They were used to develop the polio vaccine and sent up in early space missions to see what would happen to human cells in zero gravity. Research on HeLa helped uncover the secrets of cancer, viruses, and the affects of the atom bomb; it helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, stem cell research and gene mapping. Today, HeLa is still bought and sold by the billions and is still the most widely used cell line in labs worldwide. But few have ever heard of Henrietta Lacks.
Henrietta’s cells did wonders for science, but also had dramatic and troubling consequences for her children and husband – an impoverished tobacco farmer with a third grade education who struggled to afford housing and healthcare, and didn’t learn about the cells until 25 years after Henrietta’s death. Rebecca Skloot’s book traces the history of cell culture and the ethical debate surrounding research on human biological materials through the story of the HeLa cell line – the incredible science they inspired, the researchers who made it possible, and the collision between science and Henrietta’s family. “
Place: The Sigma Xi Center
Duke Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) is partnering with ScienceOnline’09 to host a Triangle-wide networking event for women scientists, engineers, educators, researchers, science writers, and students. This event also includes many of our local women’s groups and promises to be a networking extravaganza. Following a networking reception with free desserts and drinks, there will be a presentation by our guest speaker, Rebecca Skloot, a freelance science writer, contributing editor at Popular Science, and correspondent for PBS’s NOVA scienceNOW. Our goal in hosting this networking event is to bring together local women’s groups to support joint efforts in community outreach and to support communication of science information and ideas to the general public.
Discussion idea for Friday afternoon – Promoting our science writing
Sol Lederman: I offered to be the chief instigator for Friday afternoon since I’ll be flying into NC on Thursday and will have free time between the Lab tours and dinner. I’m hoping that others want to instigate get-togethers as well on Friday. One idea I have is for a bunch of us to get together after the morning tours to discuss a topic that’s near and dear to my heart – promotion of our scientific writing and of our web-sites. I envision a Master Mind group of sorts where we go around the table, telling the circle about our web-sites and sharing our successes and challenges in getting meaningful interaction with our readers. If we are able to have access to a networked computer we could critique each others’ sites and give specific advice on improving our promotion efforts. I’m happy to organize this effort, take notes, etc. if there’s enough interest. You can reach me at ledermans at osti dot gov. During the conference, you can call me on my cell phone: 505 dash 660 another dash 8218.
We’d be up for it, if there’s time between labs and WiSE: Björn Brembs, Diana Pauly, Alex Lee (See Sol’s note below about meeting at 10:00 Friday in the lobby of the Radisson.)
Friday Dinner?
Are you going to be in town on Friday but not attending the other dinner-time event? How about getting together for a meal? Visit this page to sign up.
Other ideas?
If you’d rather do something on your own, and organize your own events or meetups, do it here.
Sol Lederman: I’ll also have free time Friday morning and would love to get together with folks to discuss promotion of science writing or some other interesting topic we choose. See my announcement and cell phone number up above in the Friday afternoon discussion idea section.
- Sol: Let’s meet at the lobby of the Radisson Friday at 10:00 to network and discuss promotion of our science writing or other interesting topics. ***
Sea shanty singalong with ocean bloggers
Karen James, Kevin Zelnio,Miriam Goldstein, Southern Fried Scientist and others will be leading an informal sea-shanty singalong at the Radisson hotel bar. Note: there may be a lull in the shantying from 10-11pm when some of us sneak up to rooms to watch the premiere of Battlestar Galactica Season 4.5.
