Last year saw the introduction of a new session at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting – the “Turning the Tables” discussion that took place on Wednesday afternoon. Originally a specially recorded session that was featured in a Nature Outlook supplement, the idea behind this 90-minute slot is to move away from the plenaries and afternoon forums where the laureates are the sole focus of the spotlight, and instead to create a conversation where the young scientists themselves can share the stage.

This year’s session involved a similar set-up to the initial experiment – six PhD students and three laureates, chaired this year by Scientific American’s Steve Mirsky, answered a series of informal questions about what it’s like to be a scientist. The students came from a variety of locations including Nigeria, India, Colombia and the US while the all-male laureates were Peter Agre, Thomas Steitz and Torsten Wiesel. The discussions were framed as a chance to compare notes on how scientific practice might have changed since the laureates were themselves starting off on the scientific path, and also whether there are any noticeable differences that arise from where you study.

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In 1969, one of the more memorable incidents in the public advocacy of science took place. The American physicist Robert Wilson was asked to testify before Congress in support of the construction of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, known as Fermilab. For Wilson, building this huge machine had been a labor of love and nobody had a better background for it. He had worked on the Manhattan Project where he was the youngest group leader in the experimental division, and after the war he had become a professor at Cornell University.

In the daily morning plenary lectures at Lindau, the Nobel laureates have a chance both to share the significance of their discoveries, and also words of advice for the young scientists eager to follow in their footsteps. During the course of the week, the audience is taken on a week-long tour of the ultimate scientific scrapbook as each page is lovingly turned by one narrator after another. Working models of data, scribbled pages from lab books, personal anecdotes, family photos and even famous quotations illuminate what it means to be a scientist for the different speakers.  (More)

The final day of this year's Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting involved the customary boat trip to Isle of Mainau, where this year the Closing Panel Discussion focused on the issue of "Global Health."

To capture the live tweeting around these sessions, as well as video and blog content, we have created a Storify storyboard. We'll continue to update it as more coverage is published so you might want to bookmark it and check back again later to make sure you don't miss anything.

We've created storyboards for each day of the conference, so don't forget to check out coverage from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. and Thursday too. 

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The penultimate day of this year's Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting began with a morning of plenary sessions by four of the Laureates followed by a panel discussion on, "Being a (Responsible) Scientist."

To capture the live tweeting around these talks, as well as video and blog content, we have created a Storify storyboard. Do check back as we'll be updating it as more coverage is published. There are also individual Storifys for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  (More)

This is the 61th year that the Nobel Laureate Meetings have been held at Lindau. The conference was held for the first time in 1951, funded by the wealthy count Lennart Bernadotte, as an effort to restore the international scientific ties that had been severed by the war. The count’s daughter, Bettina Bernadotte, has been the patron of the Lindau Conferences since 2007. The different institutions and countries usually offer the countess a gift, to thank her for her hospitality. But the American delegation do things differently this year.  (More)

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We are now over halfway through this year's Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting and Wednesday commenced with a morning of plenary sessions by seven of the Laureates and an afternoon of discussions including one where laureates had the opportunity to, Turn the Tables and quiz some of the students attending this year's meeting (separate blog post to follow on this session and you can also read the post on last year's event).

To capture the live tweets around these talks, as well as video and blogging content, we have created a Storify storyboard of the morning sessions. Do check back as we'll be updating it as more coverage is published, as well as creating additional Storifys for each day of the rest of the conference. You can read similar Storifys for Monday and Tuesday.  (More)

The Nature Video team are becoming regulars at the Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting; each year they return to create several short films that capture conversations between the Nobel Laureates and the young scientists. Because these mentoring sessions usually take place behind closed doors, the videos are an important way of sharing the spirit of the meeting with those unable to attend. The films from 2008, 2009 and 2010 are available online.

On Monday morning I stepped out from the lectures inside the Inselhalle building onto the waterfront terrace, where I caught up with the team as they recorded an interview between Elizabeth Blackburn and two young scientists, Clare Smith and Karina Zillner. You can read last year’s interview with the team to find out more about how the laureates are paired up with researchers and the other preparations that are made for the films. Here we take a look at an interview itself.  (More)

Seven young researchers have become video experts during the last weeks and will do even more this week. They have interviewed their supporters back home, did a actual home story of their lives and will show us their Lindau experiences from now on.  

Before we start I'd like to introduce the team (five women and two men) to you:  (More)

Sir Harry Kroto gave a talk yesterday that was unlike any other lecture at the Lindau Meetings so far. Kroto didn’t talk about the work he had done, or about his life as a scientist. Instead, he gave a dazzling presentation showing scores of images to his audience. He kept shifting gears from art to science, to education, only to switch back again.

At one point, Kroto showed a scene from the movie ‘The Third Man’, for reasons that will become clear later in this blog post. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the movie, ‘The Third Man’ is about a young man, Holly Martins, who plans to attend the funeral of an old friend, Harry Lime, in post-war Vienna. It soon becomes clear that Lime’s dead has been staged, and that he is up to his neck in crime. Lime has disappeared in Vienna, a city that for Holly soon becomes a foreign and hostile labyrinth.  (More)

The second day of this year's Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting began with a morning of plenary sessions by six of the Laureates and an afternoon of panel discussions. To capture the live tweeting around these talks, as well as video and blog content, we have created a Storify storyboard. Do check back as we'll be updating it as more coverage is published, as well as creating additional Storifys for each day of the rest of the conference. You can find Monday's Storify here.  (More)

Joke van Bemmel (imagine how to say it with a Dutch accent - 'y' for 'j'), is a researcher from The Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam. The enthusiastic 29-year-old van Bemmel is nearing the end of her PhD, and is currently applying to find the ideal postdoc position. The dream is to: "just be doing nice, cool, interesting science."

She is excited to tell me about the study of chromatin that she has worked on with others in her lab, which was published in Cell last year. Chromatin is is a combination of proteins and DNA in the nucleus, and is 'important for the regulation of transcription', the researchers wrote. Van Bemmel tells me it's too soon to say what kinds of implications the basic research into the types of chromatin will have.

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