Gearing up for the last day of the conference. It's been good to focus on research-related stuff without distractions from TAing and my classes. Yesterday was another jam-packed day of seminars and posters. I like the seminars more than the posters. The seminars are all 15 minute strict time limit, so even if you're trapped in a bad/boring one, the pain ends relatively quickly. The poster sessions have been at the end of the day, though, so my brain is already numb and I can't concentrate enough to take more than a superficial look at the posters. I tried to focus a little harder on the ones that apply more to my potential research.

I saw a very famous guy in marine eco (I know that he and my advisor go way back), and worked up the nerve to introduce myself and describe a little of what I was thinking about doing for my research to see if he thought it was worthwhile. Pretty much he said, "Yeah, we know very little about that process, yadda, yadda," so I felt good that someone so well-known agreed that my work would be new and interesting.

On the way back to the hotel I mentioned to the postdoc from my lab, well, basically what I said in the previous paragraph (but this time naming names). She seemed hesitant, and said something along the lines of, "This is all I'm going to say, but you have to be careful who you tell your ideas to." I didn't pry, but from what it sounds like, this guy who impressed me with his 100+ publications achieved them through sometimes questionably ethical means. Luckily I didn't give him my whole research plan- just the part that was most related to his work. Still, that would be pretty low if someone like him had to cherry-pick ideas from a first-year grad student like me!

It's interesting once you get more into science and discover the faces/reputations behind the names. Quite often intellectual disagreements turn into longstanding feuds. I don't think it's compelling enough for TV, since it moves at a slow pace due to the publishing cycle. I don't see myself as the type to start any feuds during my career, but who knows who will start something with me. If that guy from two paragraphs ago publishes something similar to what I told him in a year or two, I just may have to lay the smack down. Heh, we'll see.