ViennaBios - Lessons from a conference

I spent last week in Vienna, the last destination of a series of travels this semester, before heading back to Greece for the holiday. The official excuse, was the ISMB/ECCB conference (which will be understood by bioinformatics geeks only but seriously the rest of you do not need to know!) And amazingly enough the conference was indeed the place where I spent most of my time while awake. Apart from its huge size in all aspects (participants, parallel sessions, exhibitions, 1000 posters etc) it was particularly interesting in a a number of ways, not all having to do with Science. I 'll postpone writing about Vienna for another post (or maybe another journey) and stick to the lessons a young (and lets admit only marginally promising) scientist can get from a conference.

Lesson #1: (As in most sectors of human activity) the people who really matter are most likely the ones who have been around for quite a while.
They are in general under-dressed, have awful haircuts, horrible powerpoint slides (they actually do not use overhead projectors because they are not allowed to do so) and use old-fashioned vocabulary. They are also wiser, wittier and more clever than the average speaker, they do not talk crappy-fashionable-scientific-voodoo-buzz-words all the time, have a wide knowledge of the problem they are dealing with, are more interested in questions than in answers, finish their talks with more criticism than perspective, use the language in a better way. Strangely (or not) they tend to have a totally different background than most of the attendants of the conference. Not surprisingly they have little or no impact on young researchers who carry on doing their thing...
And that is the non-optimistic lesson!

Lesson #2: Class battle exists in science
I had the chance to attend two talks by the same person given on the same day, on the same subject, to different audiences. the first one opened with an impressive introduction, carried on under flashes of photo cameras and ended with the presentation of an award for the speaker, which -as the organizers kindly informed the puzzled audience- left no time for questions. A couple of hours later, the recently awarded young scientists had to face a wave of criticism and really hard questions from a suspected audience who did not really care about awards or not forming part of this special cast of awarded, or invited speakers. To me it looked that what was was under criticism was, apart from the presented work, the whole system of evaluating scientific work through impact factors and k-indexes. It appeared that a great majority was somehow pissed at being steered by an arbitrary, self-acclaimed, scientific avant-guard, which decides what is worth it and what is not, not only when it comes to scientific answers but -and that is dreadfully WORSE- scientific questions as well.
To the unsuspected, innocent young post-doc I am, it really looked like scientific class battle of the best kind.
And that was the optimistic lesson!

Roots...

I guess the post titles ending in "..." are supposed to add a sort of nostalgic, hanging-in-the-air feeling to it, but you may be right if you think it is becoming tiring.

...however...

(here we go again!)

A long, sighing "anyway" before moving on, and that is in all possible ways. Over the last week, I have been talking with people on the phone, reading their blogs (or their comments in mine), or discussing with them directly and I got the same feeling from practically everybody. They all need holidays. Either from having worked too hard these last months, having been bored to death or simply because it's summer, in any case people are starting to think of the sea much more often around this period, at least on this side of the planet.

Moreover, and without any loss of generality, we can certainly argue that the geometric locus of the exiled Greeks' dreams is, and will always be, the Aegean Sea (and who ever dares can try to prove me wrong). Nonetheless, I don't think it's so much being tired (the case for most) or lazy (my case) for longing Sifnos, Crete or Schinousa. I 'd rather say it has to do more with our roots than with our mood or stamina. And our roots, whether we want to admit it or not, are inextricably weaved with the pines at the seashores of our childhood, buried in the sand of our teenager holiday beaches, or floating at the edge of the deep green sea of our youth. More prosaically, we need to go back in time, more than in space. And since (as an elderly wise man like Eric Hobsbawm puts it) the past is a different place, we still consider going back as a journey.

I felt his clearly only ten days ago, standing at the shore of this lagoon in Vivari, close to Nayplio, the place where I have spent a number of my childhood summers and which I have been visiting unstoppably ever since. Yes, the past is a different place, but let's admit it, it is a nice place to visit every now and then. On the other hand, no one can convince me that we are living lives so miserable or unworthy, for "nostalgia" to be the only way out.

In the end, for all you Greeks out there, the meaning of "nostalgia" itself (αλγος του νοστου) is actually the "pain of returning home" and this is exactly how Homer meant it. The fact that coming back almost always means also going back in time and this is -most of the times- painful. But what the hell! If after an unknown number of massive cataclysms, the rise and fall of a hundred empires and numerous scientific revolutions we still remain as much of a "masochist" as Ulysses, then -Zeus damn it!- it must mean something. And paraphrasing Kavafis, it may be worth even longing for the journey...

(and there you have them again, these three dots in the end)

missing the point...

On a day like this (or to put it better days like this) I should have been writing about a whole bunch of things. Antonio Machado's verses on the hot, dry summers of Andalusia, Serrat's songs about being Mediterranean (see Soundtrack), how Kastoriades understood the ancient Greeks (see Wordtrack) in a way no Greek had ever done before. Or more down to earth stuff like running onto Woody Allen and Scarlet Johanson having beer in Barceloneta, Arcade Fire preparing for Summercase festival or simply strolling down -staying at the shady parts- the sunny, quiet streets of the Gotic like the one you see in the photo.

But unfortunately I can't tell you about these things, simply because over the last few days, all these rather important stuff have been set aside and "work" has occupied my time in -lets say- a bit excessive way. I am not in a position to wine about this, having just recovered from a long overseas journey, followed by a short trip back to Greece. But still, it is the idea of it that pisses me of. Summer is here, -although not as warm as I might have expected- and my mind tends to drift more and more to the "labyrinth paths" (another reference to Kastoriades) that have to do with the ergodic literature of Milorad Pavic, the elegant melodies of Radiohead (good old stuff revisited), daydreaming strange stories that could have been written by Marquez, daywatching goals that were actually scored by Messi, talking about the history of the Balkans (an issue not to be taken lightly I can assure you), in general an incredibly variable amount of things that sadly does not include the keywords "nucleosomes", "microarrays" or "hormone-induction".

Nonetheless, it is keywords like these last ones that occupy most of my (precious) time and my even most precious little mind. It is funny but sometimes you find yourself squeezing out all the energy within towards tasks that look completely useless. Am I missing the point here?
Before I totally flip out, I should better pack my stuff and head home, have a glass of wine and watch a good film. And maybe just for the fun of it -and after having read Feyerabend's views on scientific method once more- I try once more to think about how to solve some problems, just before going to bed. A bit dizzy, after having read some more of Machado's verses, listened to a little more Radiohead and a lot more prone to thinking that science is not that much different than art.

And then maybe I come up with a solution that is not optimal, but at least beautiful.

What's new? ...and what is"news"?

I spent last week back in Barcelona, with loads of work but in very good company. This sort of homecoming has been warmer than I would have hoped for and it definitely put me in a good mood. Nonetheless, I remain in a sort of loose attachment to the US and news from the other side are still affecting my humour. Some of them are quite astonishing.

Last Wednesday back in good new US of A, CNN's star journalist Larry King was to interview Michael Moore about his latest documentary "Sicko" dealing with the country's (in-existing) social security system. Moore remains a controversial figure in the States even after having won two Palmes d' Or and wide acceptance in Europe. His interview was highly anticipated especially after allegations that he might even be persecuted for filming in Cuba, thus breaking the long-standing embargo. But it so turns out that as in many aspects of life, in modern electronic journalism as well, there is always a bigger fish that can eat the smaller. And it appears that nowadays in the USA there can be no bigger fish, than the ultimate star of emptiness, probably the world's most renown person for having done absolutely nothing, a legendary personality of mythically quantum proportions, the planet's most famous person for just being famous, the greatest celebrity of them all, Ms Paris Hilton!!!

For the ignorant residents of the Old Continent, who -like me- thought until recently that the aforementioned princess of nullity was actually the hotel of the French capital, I can only contribute by providing the background. Ms Hilton was once arrested for driving drank and her license was revoked. After having been spotted to drive (an achievement not easily undermined for such a person) without a license, she was miraculously sent to prison for a three-week term, during which the earth (or at least its US counterpart) stood still, holding its breath before the suffering and torment of the young damsel. Last week she was let go after serving her sentence and the media where there to capture the scene live, on a broadcast that according to an eye-witnessing journalist was covered "less like the liberation of Paris Hilton and more like the liberation of Paris itself in 1944".

During the last days of our princess' imprisonment and while she was still scribbling down her memories of the ordeal in the pages of her version of "Notes from the Underground" or "Prison Diaries" (soon to a bookstore near you), the mainstream media were negotiating a price with her family for her first interview after three weeks in captivity (pardon me, I meant imprisonment). ABC offered 100.000 dollars, then rumours put the number set by NBC in the upper 6 digits but when the word was out and in fear of a(nother) scandal the Hilton family fell back and granted the interview free to CNN and Larry King. The "King" of interviews was highly discouraged to complain once he was explained that Paris Hilton is the "hottest" interview he could get right now next to Usama Bin-Laden. And so it went. CNN set a timer counting down to hour-0, the blond debutant came, saw and conquered tens of millions of spectators, reading parts from the aforementioned "Prison diaries" finally and irrevocably proving to her critics all over the world that YES she can read! The show was repeated only a couple of hours later after nationwide demands.

What do I care? I think, apart from the ridiculous side, there are some issues at stake here. Electronic media are proving to be something different that what they initially set out to do (or aren't they). Smart asses running CNN, FOXnews, NBC e.t.c. care less and less everyday, about what really matters and could thus be classifiable as "news" and more about what would bring audience, therefore money. If people care about what Paris Hilton has to say, the media will give them exactly that. Some will be touched by the drama of the suffering heiress, some will have a chance to feel extremely clever just by comparison, some may even be pissed that a girl at her age, status and level of accomplishments (please stop laughing it's politically incorrect) gets to better treatment than the UN general secretary or a Nobel laureate. What they all missed was a chance to listen to Michael Moore explaining to them why they are likely to die without help if a hurricane leaves their city in ruins or a madman with a shotgun severely injures them in their college dorm. But that is a different story.

So what do I care? It would be so much better if the "audience" (and this of course includes me as well, I was watching CNN while in the US) would ask themselves the same question. What the freaking hell do I care about Paris Hilton? And just so as to add an optimistic tone, "Glory and Honour" to a real journalist, Mika Brzesinski of MSNBC who after reading the news about Paris' "freedom" tried to burn the script with a lighter live in the studio and apologized to the spectators for having to open the newsflash with such an incredibly stupid and useless piece of information...Once more proving that there are people over there that still think.

(pay tribute to Mika Brzezinski by adding one more hit to her action at youtube)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VdNcCcweL0


Goodnight and good luck!