Three Parties in One Night at the Society for Neuroscience
For the third year in a row, I attended the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. This time it was held in Washington DC. My friend Stuart Firestein and I always manage to have a series of adventures at this conference…
One night we found ourselves at a party at the Spy Museum, and from there we went over to the Air and Space Museum where Jeff Lichtman from Harvard presented mind-blowing images from inside the brain showing how our neurons are connected to each other. His talk was followed by a very fancy party hosted by Zeiss, the manufacturer of incredible microscopes. In fact, this party was so fancy that they served miniature, two-bite, baked Alaskas and chocolate mousse-filled brownies for dessert. Friends from Columbia University brought over the CEO of Zeiss, James Sharp, and had me do a bunch of magic tricks for him. Then James Sharp took us over to Jeff Lichtman, and I did magic for him as well, and was able to ask him questions about his amazing presentation.
Tipped off by my friend Moran Cerf, we then headed to the third party of the night. Stuart used to drive a cab in DC many years ago and when he heard the address, he worried that it was in a dangerous neighborhood. But that didn’t stop us! Late at night, we pulled up at an Animal House-like party in a 2-story home FILLED with students where we found Moran and Christof Koch, (the Chief Scientific Officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science) in the middle of the throbbing crowd.
It was a fantastic and very nerdy night.
Performing magic for James Sharp, the CEO of Zeiss:
