New, Notable, Emerging

The 'New and Notable' talks were quite interesting, and invigorated me a bit.  It's always fun hearing about cool applications of new technology.  I learned a lot, especially about optics from the talk on adaptive optics imaging.

I noticed a peculiar schizophrenia of mine though.  When I hear about new techniques, I usually think, "That's cool, but what is it good for?"  But when I hear about biological problems approached with established techniques, I usually yawn and think, "Nice, but not novel."  I guess I'm looking for the rare hybrid of novel new technology being used to solve interesting problems, which in some sense is what biophysics is about (to ab experimentalist.)

Now at 'Emerging Single Molecule Techniques.'  Guess we'll see if there are any unicorns to be had...