I think whoever is doing the scheduling got the message last night. No more boring talks. The morning sessions were quite technical but it was a long night so no one really noticed. Wald came on right before the break and gave an update on his dorsofocillus research. He brought the house down.
First he had found even more great video of the Jijibugs acting out their funny mating dance. Even better, though, he interspersed it with actual clips from The Incredulous Adventures of Jiji and The Bug. I don't remember these particular episodes, but I'm guessing they were in the sixth season, after they had found the abandoned science lab but before Bug had sunk it to the center of the planet trying to make his doomsday weapon. He was trying to convince Jiji to sleep with him using a series of bizarre euphemisms, which Jiji mistook for descriptions of genetic science. She kept calling recombination "free combination", and he kept thinking that meant she wanted to bump him.
But I digress. In any case it was very funny.
Wald added nuance to the results he published a couple of months ago, but with little in terms of new conclusions. It was basically a review piece with tremendous pizazz, and a hard act to follow.
Evo came next.
Her presentation was really quite good. I have to admit she made a case for the importance of planetary oceanic hydrology as it relates to every other possible field of study, even mine. There was not, in the end, a huge amount of novel data but she took what she had and tied it to everything under the sun. It was a nice survey lecture and if it had been yesterday she would have been the highlight of the day. Today, following Wald, there was an obvious lack of depth.
At least to me. Everyone else thought Evo was the star. People kept saying "Wasn't she great?" I couldn't really stick up for Wald since I was a co-author, but I wish someone had.
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