After the wine tasting came a lecture organized by "Women in Science and Engineering" (WiSE). First off, I had to realize that the din of a large crowd in a small room becomes even worse for my ears if the crowd is predominantly female and the noise is at a bat-like frequency.
Anyway, the lecture was given by Rebecca Skloot and started out very entertaining with Rebecca telling us about her job in the morgue of a veterinary hospital. The title of the lecture was "Women, science, and storytelling: The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks (a.k.a. HeLa), and one woman's journey from scientist to writer".The lecture is about Rebecca's book about Henrietta Lacks. Lacks was colored, a mother of five and suffered from cervical cancer in the 1950s. Her cancer cells were taken from her without her knowledge. These cells are now known around the world as the HeLa cell line. Much of the lecture was about the absolutely stunning biography and etiology of Henrietta Lacks and her cancer. HeLa cells were not only the first ones to be cultured, they were also the first ones to be mailed, to carry the Polio virus and many other firsts. She told us that if you could put all the currently existing HeLa cells together on a scale they would weigh more than 27 tons.
She then said she didn't want people to type during her talk, so I'll ave to stop ere...