Sunday 13 November 2011

Celling out

Science.  What's that all about?  Luckily we have John around, who took it upon himself to educate us theologians with a couple of tickets to his science conference.  This evening was a "poster reception", where various boffins stand in front of big displays of their work and answer questions.  There was also lots of free food and drink.

I felt more at home walking around Santiago than I did in the huge SF conference hall, surrounded on all sides by phrases like "pemetrexed cytotoxicity", "tetraploidy checkpoint in paclitaxel induced endoreduplication", and a personal favourite for its poetic symmetry: "Geranylgeraniol oxidase activity involved in oxidative formation of geranylgeranial."

Yet far stranger than the titles of the posters was seeing John acting in an adult, some would say professional manner when talking to the many academics and potential clients who wandered up to his firm's display.  It wasn't that long ago that I can remember him...well, let's keep the family secrets out of the public eye.  Suffice it to say that Hannah and I were both impressed and proud of her baby brother (look at his cute little toes!)  And, after a few beers and several glasses of wine, some of the posters even began to make sense.


Would you let this man do science on you?


John attracts a crowd with his natural charm and easy manner.


Not everyone was quite as diligent.  I'm a bit disappointed with Keith.   


Hannah and I made a poster displaying everything we know about science.