Back from Budapest!
So, in the end I did have to go to the Astrobiology Conference in Budapest all on my own... I had a really good time over there, on the first day I met someone we work with based in Germany, and a few new people, 2 from Aberdeen University who work on stuff vaguely related to what I do, a guy from the Netherlands and an Americanised French lady. We kind of made a small group and went out for lunch and in the evenings, and drank much beer (er, I mean Hungarian beer, we are cultured!) and went clubbing on the last night until 4am!
I stayed a couple of days after the conference to look around, and as it happened the Dutch guy and French girl were also staying a bit longer, so I went to see the old part of Budapest and the City park with them on Thursday. On Friday I wandered around the island in the Danube (Mary's Island?) which is in the centre of the city, and went on a mission to find 'statue park' which is essentially a dumping ground for all the communist monuments removed from the City - no museum or information, just statues standing outside gradually decaying. Then on Saturday I went into the Buda Castle Labyrinth, which is really more of an expensive art exibition than anything else, but it was interesting. I also went into a Cathedral I happened to be near and found that the Saint Crown of Hungary (which is supposed to be the living personification of the Law in Hungary) was there. That was impressive, and odd because it has 8 apostles on it (random number?) and some fool dropped it when it was being hidden for WW1, so it's all bent out of shape. Oh, almost forgot, this crown is tradiationally supposed to have been St. Stephen's Crown, but was in fact made 200 years after he died. Bizzarly this is not the only object in Hungary traditionally believed to be something it is not!
Anyway back at the Conference, I think my talk(s) went reasonably well, I didn't get asked anything tricky and some French guy I hadn't spoken to said it was good after I finished, so it must have been OK :-). At least I was talking about something vaguely scientific - really some people talk rubbish, and somehow get funding to research it! Examples (in brief and not very scientifically):
Solar System Warming: Global warming is not limited to Earth; a couple of pics of Mars and Jupiter might show that they are also warming up. This is because the solar system itself is currently travelling through a very dusty region of interstellar space, and the friction of the dust passing around the solar system is heating it up..... yeah, right...
Microorganisms live in Comets: The Deep Impact Mission (where they shot a comet with a washing machine) found carbonates in the comet. We don't yet know a mechanism by which these can be formed without liquid water, so liquid water must exist inside comets, so there could be bacteria there.... Hmmm. I am lost for words!
Photosynthetic Organisms on Mars: So, there are spots on Mars that change colour depending on the season. This could be because there is water there melting and freezing depending on the temperature. So there is liquid water and could be a whole ecosystem there... - fine as a 1-liner, but 20 minutes on details was really, er, hypothetical a work of pure fiction...
Star Formation to Human Conciousness: OK, so Iron is made in stars and some ends up as irony minerals. Some of these minerals are present in bits of the brain linked to conciousness, so stars contribute to how we think... at this point I stopped even trying to make sense of it!
Ah well, at least stupid talks make me feel my research is more worthwhile than theirs, and really they were so bad it was funny! There were good interesting talks too. I went to everything except the last session, which was mostly Russians talking about Antarctic Perma-Frost. Those talks last year nearly drove me insane with boredom, I mean it's not really interesting anyway, but those guys just have no clue how to give an interesting presentation!
It's good to be back, I was really knackered on Sunday and I'm only really catching up now, which is useful as my supervisor is back in tommorrow then I'm away on Friday for "Weekend of Weddings", which involves 2 weddings on Friday and Saturday at almost opposite ends of the country... At least I am organised enough to have bought presents for both - speaking of which I should go wrap the non-gift wrapped one now!
I stayed a couple of days after the conference to look around, and as it happened the Dutch guy and French girl were also staying a bit longer, so I went to see the old part of Budapest and the City park with them on Thursday. On Friday I wandered around the island in the Danube (Mary's Island?) which is in the centre of the city, and went on a mission to find 'statue park' which is essentially a dumping ground for all the communist monuments removed from the City - no museum or information, just statues standing outside gradually decaying. Then on Saturday I went into the Buda Castle Labyrinth, which is really more of an expensive art exibition than anything else, but it was interesting. I also went into a Cathedral I happened to be near and found that the Saint Crown of Hungary (which is supposed to be the living personification of the Law in Hungary) was there. That was impressive, and odd because it has 8 apostles on it (random number?) and some fool dropped it when it was being hidden for WW1, so it's all bent out of shape. Oh, almost forgot, this crown is tradiationally supposed to have been St. Stephen's Crown, but was in fact made 200 years after he died. Bizzarly this is not the only object in Hungary traditionally believed to be something it is not!
Anyway back at the Conference, I think my talk(s) went reasonably well, I didn't get asked anything tricky and some French guy I hadn't spoken to said it was good after I finished, so it must have been OK :-). At least I was talking about something vaguely scientific - really some people talk rubbish, and somehow get funding to research it! Examples (in brief and not very scientifically):
Solar System Warming: Global warming is not limited to Earth; a couple of pics of Mars and Jupiter might show that they are also warming up. This is because the solar system itself is currently travelling through a very dusty region of interstellar space, and the friction of the dust passing around the solar system is heating it up..... yeah, right...
Microorganisms live in Comets: The Deep Impact Mission (where they shot a comet with a washing machine) found carbonates in the comet. We don't yet know a mechanism by which these can be formed without liquid water, so liquid water must exist inside comets, so there could be bacteria there.... Hmmm. I am lost for words!
Photosynthetic Organisms on Mars: So, there are spots on Mars that change colour depending on the season. This could be because there is water there melting and freezing depending on the temperature. So there is liquid water and could be a whole ecosystem there... - fine as a 1-liner, but 20 minutes on details was really, er, hypothetical a work of pure fiction...
Star Formation to Human Conciousness: OK, so Iron is made in stars and some ends up as irony minerals. Some of these minerals are present in bits of the brain linked to conciousness, so stars contribute to how we think... at this point I stopped even trying to make sense of it!
Ah well, at least stupid talks make me feel my research is more worthwhile than theirs, and really they were so bad it was funny! There were good interesting talks too. I went to everything except the last session, which was mostly Russians talking about Antarctic Perma-Frost. Those talks last year nearly drove me insane with boredom, I mean it's not really interesting anyway, but those guys just have no clue how to give an interesting presentation!
It's good to be back, I was really knackered on Sunday and I'm only really catching up now, which is useful as my supervisor is back in tommorrow then I'm away on Friday for "Weekend of Weddings", which involves 2 weddings on Friday and Saturday at almost opposite ends of the country... At least I am organised enough to have bought presents for both - speaking of which I should go wrap the non-gift wrapped one now!