Talks & Thoughts, First Day

Evening – Just before dinner April 19^th, 2010

Day 1 is coming to a close, just dinner left to conquer. Despite technical difficulties: flights delayed from the ashen sky and power fluctuations, we had a pretty interesting day of talks. The conference opened with some comments from the directors, mostly generic, but CNR Rao said something which stuck with me (a little paraphrasing), “People read too many papers, then think everything’s been done. Then they don’t do anything new. Don’t read too much!” I took this as encouragement to just try the experiments and not to worry if someone else might be out there about too scoop you. Later I spoke with Alex a large rugged man and professor in Finland, sort of a Jim Morrison type, and a theorist. He agreed with CNR on the matter, we further confirmed that its quite rare these days that a subject is so “hot” that you may get scooped on a paper. Most people’s work is different enough that it would be more valuable to have two papers published (maybe the impact of one suffers a bit) rather than choosing not to pursue a project.

The day continued with five talks, all with some theoretical component. K.N. Ganesh spoke about using DNA as a templating agent for nanoparticles. The self assembly of DNA in nature is well renowned, however emergent super-molecular structures can be formed with the addition of hydrophilic/hydrophobic ligands such as CTAB. Not too surprising (probably well know already). But, he goes further by showing that the addition of AgNO₃ can be used to incorporate silver into the structure, the particles can then be deposited on a surface by evaporating the organic solvent. But where and how do the Ag⁺ ions form nanoparticles? Daniel Cox had to speak via tele-conference, he had some sort of injury which prevented him from traveling. Funny right? No not about getting injured, but because I he was probably back in Davis and I was in India.... Well he gave a nice talk about amyloid matter, protein structures which are disordered so you can’t get crystal structures. He say’s they’re kinda like protein yarn balls. These amyloids are present in some forms of spider silk, but we’re mostly concerned with them because of their presence in the development of life threatening diseases such as Alzheimer’s. He has developed some theoretical models to describe the formation of these structures Well, it was a bit a reach for me as a solid state chemist, but it was a good talk. The last few talks dove deeper into theory... hard to follow even for Alex. Notably, Balasubramerian gave some amazing gestures (see picture) and a pretty nice talk about ionic liquids. S.D. Das tried to follow suit with intense gestures and a sort of run-way model style of lecture, but his talk was so deeply entrenched in mathematical models, his motions just became a distraction and a joke. Big ups to Waghmare for trying to make the theory accessible to the masses.

Apart from the talks, I spent some time with an Italian student, Lucca, discussing how these Indians don’t drink and they don’t even leave the campus. Furthermore, they say they work Monday to Sunday and even after dinner, but he pointed out that they are very casual about it all and rather inefficient. Lucca has never heard of “Bang” the Italian spaghetti western card game that I have and love. He did tell me that Parmajean cheese is named after the city where he lives, Parma. Word!

There needs to be a post about conference do’s and don’ts according to JHR... soon dear reader, soon.

Some short notes on the pictures- We keep having meals in this pavilion, I’m not really feeling it. These are the cooks... The campus is full of nature! And cleaning people. There are butterflies everywhere. These kids were really excited to let me take their picture and their English was great!

Good, thanks for reading. Enjoy the pics!

Pictures - Breakfast Cooks, Waterfall near the conference hall, Funky Statue near the hall, Cleaning the steps, Flowers, Balasubramerian gesture, trapped butterfly, future cricket pros