I am in Rochester NY to give a seminar in the Biology Dept at U of R. I spent the day talking to faculty, post-docs and grad students. They’ve an excellent group of evolutionary geneticists. It’s always good to get out of town, but the Tuesday/Thursday routine of this course keeps me grounded all semester. I agreed to this trip because I could drive. The US air transportation system is a reliability joke.
This class comes up surprisingly often in conversation. A post-doc here is thinking about her future research. I found myself imparting the wisdom I learned from Jack Szostak this year and Barry Marshall last year. Find yourself a really interesting question that is solvable and which almost no one else is working on. She is thinking of a career in how flies make sperm. Sounded perfect.
I also learned that I HAVE to work intra-genomic conflict into this class. Genes at war is clearly way more than last century’s theoretical curiosity.