After much internal deliberation, I’ve decided to give things another over here on Slackademia (as 21 of you must have suspected after my two erroneous TwitterFeed tweets the other day). I’m in Chicago, using my hotel’s free wireless whilst reclining on the chaise longue (both amenities seem to be in lieu of the generally ubiquitous mini-bar – which I find odd, but wonderful) after my first day at SFN ‘09. I’ve got notes upon notes of material already for a heap of science posts that’ll have to wait for a day when I’m less tired. For now, I’d just like to feel a bit of the awe that I’ve already been struck by.

St Andrews overlayed on McCormick Place Convention Center at the same scale. Maps have been rotated to better illustrate size. Images copyright of Google.

The convention centre – and I’m not sure how much of it is used exclusively by SFN – runs from approximately Dean’s Court to Uni Hall. There are more than 29,000 people coming, which is more than three times the University’s faculty and student body, or about twice the size of the town including local residents. The workshop I attended today held about 300 people – that’s bigger than Melville, Dean’s Court, Sallies’, Uni Hall, John Burnett…

Stay tuned and get excited for future articles where I try to sum up some of the more interesting research here for the non-neuroscientists among you, including a series of multiple posts looking at depression. Also, since many of you will probably be new ’round these parts, check my updated About page.