Tourist menu on the last day

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The morning session concerned mitochondria and diseases related thereto. One presentation was about the Fe/S-protein machinery in the mitochondria. Another presentation was about disease-related mutations. A lot of these mutations occur in the tRNA-genes and can precipitate severe diseases.

The plenary session just before lunch was the Women in Science Award session. It was awarded to an old French professor who had done a lot of work with Listeria. It was interesting in view of the recent cases of Listeria food poisoning and I knew approximately nothing about this bacteria. It turns out it is an intra-cellular pathogen, which enters through the cell membrane and then swims around in the cytosol, proliferating, and is able to move to neighboring cells.

After the last session, I hurried to the train to go into the city to have lunch. It seems like the restaurants around the conference venue (Porte Maillot) are a bit over priced. When I ate in the quartier latin, I got an excellent 3-course menu for the same as I had paid for a steak (more or less) at the brasserie next to the venue on the first day. Next time, I wanted to try cote du boeuf. I took the RER double decker train from Neilly-Maillot. It is the so called express train but it wasn't worth it. They don't go very frequently and at least on my stretch the train was also very slow. But at least it passed over the river with a view to the Eiffel Tower. 

Eiffel tower as seen from the train. I had seen it in the evening returning from the city the other day. It looked very nice with lights on.

Arriving at St. Michel-Notre Dame, I was immediately engulfed by a swarm of tourists, as I exited the metro. I soon found a street full of restaurants and people trying to get me into them. They had very cheap offers for 3-course menus. After looking around for a bit, I decided for a place with a very nice display of seafood in the window and a "menu gourmand" with Oysters for starter, grilled lamb as main course and cheese for third course. When I entered, I realized that it was a Greek restaurant. Melancholic Greek music was played at loud volume, they even had a scrawny cat, typical of Greek restaurants. Well, Greek can be good. The service was certainly very good and attentive, and my 6 oysters soon arrived at my table. Well, then I remembered that I actually prefer cooked oysters, not raw. But the oysters were fresh and well served. Not too much you can fuck up there... On to the next course. As I love lamb, and knowing that Greek food can be very good from experience, I looked forward to this one. However, the meat that was served to me was really not fantastic. It seemed like it had been re-heated. The baked potato had been re-heated for sure, it was a bit cold on the inside. Overall, an acceptable meal for a cafeteria lunch, but light years away from being "gourmand". The cheese was even worse: two slices of an OK supermarket goat's cheese and some not-so-fantastic feta. I shouldn't have taken the cheese in a Greek restaurant... All the time during the meal, the owner was patrolling the restaurant, occasionally singing along to the tune playing on the stereo in a loud voice. Do people actually like this? Well, I didn't. I left the restaurant cursing myself for having chosen such a mediocre tourist-meal, just because it seemed like a bargain (at 20 euros including a drink I guess you can't expect too much). Why the hell didn't I stick to the cote du boeuf?

Oysters as a starter - so far so good

After the meal I went to do some shopping. I wanted to find something for the guys at home and 4 high quality miniature Eiffel towers that I can use for my souvenir chess game project (could be used as either towers or bishops). I found T-shirts and a key ring (Michael) for the guys at home. But all the Eiffel towers were of such a crappy quality, that I didn't want them (really thin metal and costing only 0.5-1 euro).

Incredible Notre Dame

Every where you turn in Paris, an impressive building or monument turns up.

I proceeded over the bridge to Ile de la Cite and had a look at the Sacre Coeur church. Man, it's impressive. I had forgotten how big it is. There was a long line of tourists queuing up to access the church (going up in the towers, I guess). I proceeded and came to yet another immense building. It was Hotel de Ville, townhouse of Paris. I headed towards Les Halles, and looked for shoe shops on the way. I didn't find any shoes that I liked, and took the train back to Port Maillot. I was just in time for the next session on bioinformatics.

At 5.30, I left the conference, picked up my suitcase at the hotel and took the train to the airport. I had to change at Chatelet les Halles, which is a terrible station, with an incredible amount of people. Should be avoided if possible.

Hiroko picked me up at the airport at 10.30. Ah, it was really nice to be picked up as I was tired and beaten after a very long day.

Climate change and shopping

I chose the NMR lectures this morning. One very nice presentation concerned Cu/Zn binding proteins and included NMR experiments on proteins expressed in live cells. Someone in Wuthrich´s lab already started such experiments in E. coli in the early 2000-years. It was nice to see that things have evolved to something useful.

A lecture in the grand auditorium concerned androgenic (created by humans) climate change. I remember that I was surprised when seeing this subject in the conference program as none of us here are climate scientists. Anyway, I looked forward to see some unbiased scientific facts on this subject. And it seemed like everybody at the conference felt the same way. The presenter was very good, but didn't really show any facts, that surprised me. He showed a curve of rising temperature from 1850 to present, ice-core data (bubbles of atmospheric air trapped in ice) dating back 800,000 years (!) and including 8 ice ages which showed that the CO2 content has gone up dramatically in modern times. Furthermore, he said that the data could not be simulated without the inclusion of the effect of androgenic CO2. During the question round, it came up, that the latest data actually show a slowing down of the rising temperature. I actually remembered reading this as well. Why didn't the presenter mention this in his presentation? So much for unbiased! While it is probably true, that androgenic CO2 has contributed to the rise in temperature, I have strong doubts about the projections being made for the future. As my Ph.D. advisor used to say "You can fit your data to an elephant, if you have enough variable parameters".

After today´s program, I decided to go shopping in Paris. I took the train to Havre-Caumartin and came up to this sight:

The department store "Printemps" - a temple for shopping.

I went to different shops and department stores. Printemps and Lafayette are the big, noble department stores, but actually Printemps looks great from outside, but quite shabby inside, compared to e.g. those in London. I got some exclusive food in Lafayette for my hotel room dinner after the work out.

Molecular Biology and Quartier Latin

The best lecture of the day was about the protein TOR, which signals cell growth and is the target of rapamycin (it was isolated from a soil sample from Easter island (Rapa Nui). If the protein is knocked out, cells do not achieve their full size. TOR is regulated by i.a. insulin and there is a feed-back mechanism, by which TOR down regulates this pathway, leading to insulin resistance. Hence rapamycin could re-introduce insulin sensitivity. Experiments with rapamycin on test animals (after full development) demonstrates longer life expectancy w/ the drug. The mechanism is thought to be the same as for calorie restriction as TOR is regulated by abundance of nutrients.

With reduced level of TOR: perfectly proportional reduction in size of the fly

I had lunch in another brasserie close to the conference venue. It was a very nice place, very French, with the usual old people having lunch there, all dressed up. I had a club sandwich [Klyb saowish] with fries and freshly fried bacon. It looked great but the taste was a bit ... Like, hm McDonalds.

At the cafe Oresto: Beautifully served with freshly made french fries and bacon. But the sandwhich was, hm, not fantastic.

After the lectures, I went on sight seeing. First, I took the train to St. Germain des prés, where Hiroko and I had seen a fantastic performance by a male soprano, singing Ave Maria in the vault of the ancient church, 20 years ago. I had a look at the church and sat down inside.

St. Germain des prés - the oldest church in Paris (Romanesque style). It holds the grave of René Descartes.

 The vault where we heard the fantastic Ave Maria sung by a male singer about 20 years ago

Across the street I looked at the author's cafe Les Deux Magots (Charles Dickens, Simone de Beuvoir and others). There were so many people, that I really didn't feel like trying to get a coffee there. Instead I continued along the path suggested in my old guide book. It took me past another church, St Sulpice, an enormous baroque church. I had actually told myself, that I didn't want to see too many churches in Paris this time. But they are impressive, and I couldn't resist taking a closer look at this one...

St. Sulpice, a gigantic Baroque church. Once converted to a "temple of victory" by Napoleon.

The space in the nave is enormous. I am glad, I took a look.

I passed the Jardin du Luxembourg (Senate in the back) and sat down on one of the many garden chairs that are available. The sun was shining and a lot of people were enjoying their Sunday afternoon there.

In the latin quarter, I found a small restaurant, where I had a fabulous 3-course meal: smoked salmon (picture), entrecote with potatoes fried in garlic butter (really good, have to try it at home), and a crème brûlée which was as thick as butter.

Panteon under renovation.

Gargoyles of St. Severin, closer to the river bank.

Bonjour, Paris!

What better way to greet Paris than with a good steak at a Brasserie? The place advertised the food as "pièce du boucher" (not a piece of the butcher, which would be cannibalism, but rather "Butcher´s choice" which indicates that it should be an unspecified but good piece of meat). It was indeed good, and I was starved after a long travel from Munich. It seemed to take forever to get from the airport to Paris. I am always reminded how run-down and shabby the tube in London is, when I am there. Well, the metro in Paris is worse. I guess we are pretty well off in Munich, even though we often fail to appriciate it. Anyway, I didn't get to the hotel before well over four and by the time I was at the restaurant it was well over five and I had had no lunch, so that steak sure hit the spot.

After the food, I went to a local supermarket for some snacks for the hotel room and then headed up to the "Palais des congrès". The conference had already started with some introductory BS about the organizers (FEBS and EMBO). I got a good seat in one of the foremost rows (had forgotten my newly purchased glasses at home). Five minutes later an old chum was rolled down from the stage in a wheelchair and the introductory part was over - perfect timing!

Human origins. A neandertal perspective.

This is what I came for! The presentation by Svante Pääbo.

The out-of-Africa hypothesis: The logic is simple - our (non-African) DNA can be traced back to that of Africans. Africans on the other hand have sequences that we don´t have. Hence, everything must have started in Africa. Statistics tells us that we exited Africa about 100,000 years ago.

But about 40,000 years ago, contributions where added from Neandertals (which the Africans don´t have). Hence, we must have "met" them as we migrated.

Svante Paabo gave a very good and fascinating lecture about all the conclusions which could be made based on the sequencing of the complete genome of a Neanderthal. Not surprisingly, some of the differences between us and Neandertals have to do with neurodevelopment. But some immunological features also appear to have been added, which could have conferred improved resistance to infection in the environment that "we" were moving to. 

 After the presentations: Me in front of the Palais de congres, which is a gigantic concrete bunker, where the conference takes place.

The view from my room. The tower is the hotel which is a part of the palais de congres. It got bad reviews in booking.com so I chose mine instead, which is "across the street" (a very wide street). If it hadn't been for the hotel tower, I could probably have seen the Eiffel tower in this direction.

In the evening, I used the hotel gym and had my post work-out snack in the hotel room while writing this. The hotel gym was OK. Everything brand new, but the strength training equipment was based on the usual (in hotel gyms) multi-purpose bull shit machine, which is never any good (although this seemed to be a top-of-the-line model). The gym also had a set of free weights, which improved the situation a bit ;-).