After the opening ceremony on Sunday which lasted a little too long, I was pretty excited about the first lectures beginning on Monday morning. Even though the line up was Chemistry, Medicine, Physics, break then M, M & M, I was eager to hear the Nobel Laureates talk about their own work.
Lecture 1: Ada Yonath (Chemistry Nobel 2009) showed a video of the working of the amazing ribosome and discussed in depth the role it plays in the cell. Yonath spoke with such energy that her love for the subject was overflowing. She also touched upon the topic of women in science and said “Young women, go do science. It is a lot of fun even without prizes”. It is possible to be loved by family and still do science she stressed and went on to show the ‘grandma of the year’ award given to her by her granddaughter.
Lecture 2: Jack Szostak (Medicine Nobel 2009), who was awarded the Nobel for his contribution to the understanding of the telomerase enzyme, spoke about something completely unrelated topic. He explored the topic of the origin of life and designing an artificial cell by taking inspiration from places on earth which are extremely hostile and still have life. His research was quite interesting from a chemist’s perspective as he spoke about how self-organising systems could be exploited to polymerise unnatural DNA without DNA polymerase. He showed results of such polymerisation as a chemical reaction within a ‘cell’ that was made out of the simple phospholipid membrane.
Lecture 3: John Mather (Physics Nobel 2006) spoke about the activities of NASA and how they have helped accomplish interesting discoveries. He took us on a walk through the history of astronomy by discussing the milestones achieved by great scientists in the field. He answered key questions that are asked when the big bang theory is discussed like if the universe is expanding then why is the solar system not? And of course we had a dose of weird facts like ‘about 1% of interchannel snowflakes on a TV are the Cosmic Microwave Background’.
The second session lectures was all by physiology/medicine laureates and you can read about them on Jessica’s post
Afternoon lecture: F. Sherwood Rowland (Chemistry Nobel 1995) gave a compelling account of the greenhouse effect and climate change. His lecture was so well organised that it was almost like a rapid course in this science. Even though most of us scientists have read so much about climate change there was heaps to learn from Rowland. Some facts that I was unaware: the 6 ppm annual cycle of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, ChloroFluoroCarbons (CFCs) are 25000 times as harmful as carbon dioxide, the natural greenhouse effect makes life feasible on earth (but the increase caused by our activities is what can destroy our habitat).
Later in the afternoon, I had a stimulating discussion about the state of science communication in India with Seema Singh who is science journalist at LiveMint. To my no surprise, I learn that there is a lot of appetite for science news in India but the media industry does nothing to satisfy that. Even after having spent 10 years in science journalism this situation still baffles her.
I had a fairly strong feeling that I will not find time in the day to go back to the hotel to change in to formal wear for the grand international dinner and thus, I wore a suit all day. Lindau, in July, is not the right place to do that. I was so tempted to just jump in the lake and cool myself. After avoiding that temptation, I made my way to the main hall where everyone had already started taking seats. We were given a map with list of laureates on different tables.
Before choosing the table, I met Walter Kohn (Chemistry Nobel 1998) who seemed a little lost. Ok, I wasn’t exactly prepared to meet a laureate in such a situation, so I fumbled and instead of introducing myself before speaking I asked him if I could help. Turned out he was worried about a guest he was expecting. Having dealt with that for him he asked me “So would you like to join me on the table?” and I couldn’t stop my big smile which said ‘Yes, of course!’
He spoke to me about his latest trip to India where he was trying to convince the Indian planning commission to consider solar energy as against nuclear energy for the future. “And how did it go”, I asked. “The people there seemed promising and they have committed to look into it.” Even with the bureaucracy in India, when a Nobel laureate speaks they listen. :)
The evening ended with the traditional dance ‘Schunkelwalzer’ where girls and boys were paired randomly and swayed to the music. I had a partner from Switzerland doing her research on Molybdenum catalysts for epoxidation reactions (co-incidence that I got a chemist?).
All in all the perfect first day of lectures and interactions. The next days are only going to be better.
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