COLD SPRING HARBOR, NY, May 8 - Following is an abbreviated list of select facts about, and observations from, the opening plenary of Cold Spring Harbor Lab's 2002 Genome Sequencing & Biology meeting, which kicked off here yesterday and runs through Saturday.
Number of registrants: about 500
Number of abstracts presented: about 300
Number of countries represented: 25
Number of Hawaiian shirts worn by men: 13
Worn by women: zero
Number of Apple Mac computers available for attendees: five
Number of PCs: one
Number of men with ponytails: 18
Number of tie-dyed shirts: 22
With Birkenstock sandals, add 10
With socks, add 5
Number of jokes in which Craig Venter was the butt: three
Number of jokes in which Eric Lander was the butt: one
Number of Ensembl Gene Sweepstake bets: 165
Lowest speculation: 27,462 genes
Highest speculation: 153,478 genes
Number of novel words: one--'schmoosh,' uttered by Devin Locke from Case Western
University and used to describe what happens in a region of genes when there is so much collapse that distinguishing how they settle becomes difficult.