CIAC 2003 - A visitor's perspective

Sedusa

GPO
Registered
Joined
Nov 18, 2002
Messages
109
Well!

Today the second day of the CIAC (Cephalopod International Advisory Committee) 2003 symposium drew to a close. One more day left and I am sad that it will be the last for another 3 years. It was announced today that the CIAC 2006 meeting will be in Austrailia - and I urge everyone to try to make it to that one! I know that I will make the effort to do so. I have been having a wonderful time here in thailand for the symposium. Although the island of phuket and the country of thailand are quite beautiful, the CIAC 2003 has definitely stolen the show and been the highlight of my trip. It has been extremely interesting and informative. Yesterday the symposium began with a touching tribute to Kir N. Nesis, russian teuthologist and author of Cephalopods Of The World who passed away in january. Several teuthologists made tributes to this man whom it seems that everyone in the field respected very deeply. I have to say that I was moved by this display of cameraderie.

In related titular news, it was announced that the second edition of Cephalopods Of The World (The FAO guide, not Kir Nesis' book, the first edition of which coincidentally was published in the same year in the '80's) will be published in 2004 in 3 volumes! The first volume should be early in 2004, with the second two to follow later in the year, the contents being the Key and Sepiids in the first volume, and Teuthids and Octopods in the following two volumes. I'm sure that many of you will be as excited as me to see these published! On another publishing note, Paul Rodhouse mentioned in a talk that they had been having trouble getting the CIAC 2000 manuscripts published in book form due to the publisher, and mentioned Peter Boyle. I did not get the chance to speak to Paul Rodhouse myself, but this makes me think that it may be the same volume that amazon.com cancelled orders for? I will update if I have any news.

The presentations have been wonderful! I have had the opportunity to hear talks and presentations from teuthologists such as Clyde Roper, Paul Rodhouse, Erica Vidal, Jennifer Mather (with a very interesting talk about Moynihan's language question in Sepioteuthis!), James Wood, Graham Pierce, John Bower, George Jackson, C.C. Lu, and too many others to list (apologies to all the splendid presenters and speakers whom I did not list!) and we still have a day to go. We've heard about squid paralarvae, mate guarding in an indonesian octopus(!), age pigments, diets of cephalopods, animal who make their diets of cephalopods, species of Architeuthis, Loligo, Sepioteuthis and Gonatus, genetic differences in populations of squid, and many more fascinating subjects.

I have to say that all of the teuthologists that I have had the pleasure to meet so far have been absolutely wonderful, and went out of their way to make me feel quite at home at the welcome dinner. This has been greatly appreciated, as I am quite intimidated by the vast cephalopod knowledge contained in the room, being surrounded by some of the most respected and intelligent people in the field of cephalopods in the world, who have been happy to answer questions for a non-biologist who came all the way out to thailand for the symposium. :smile:


Lastly I think I have to say thanks to James Wood, who has been quite as friendly as his online presence would suggest, whose excellent contributions to the online knowledge base of cephalopods helped to rekindle my interest in these fascinating creatures, and I am sure has done the same for many non-scientists on the web. When I get back to the states I'll post a scan of the group photograph that was taken yesterday, and while I'm sure you guys will be a lot more excited to see the teuthologists, you'll see me in the back row dwarfed by Mark Norman's tall stature!

Wish everybody could be here!

Saul
 
Hi Saul,

Thanks for taking the time to write up such a detailed report of the symposium. Very interesting stuff, hope you continue to update us.

It's encouraging to hear that you, as a non- marine biologist, are accepted by the scientists present and are getting so much from the meetings. So maybe more of us should plan to go to the next one!

Nancy
 
Re: CIAC 2003 - A visitor's perspective

Sedusa said:
the CIAC 2006 meeting will be in Australia - and I urge everyone to try to make it to that one!

How about if we directly precede or follow it with a big ol' TONMO bash here in NZ? :smile:
 
Wow!!

What I wouldn't give to be surrounded by scientists, and such!!! Sure wish I could do the Australia venture!!!!

Thanks for sharing your insight! I bet you were in awe!!!!

Carol :smile:
 
I second Kat's suggestion! Altho I suggest that it be after the symposium, as if all the beer emoticons everybody seems to post are any indication, we may be in rough shape afterwards!

Today was the last day, and although Annabelle Del Norte-Campos had a medical emergency at the end of her talk, and we all hope that she will be okay, the presentations have been excellent today as well. I actually have to go to the farewell banquet in about 30 minutes, so I won't have as detailed a synopsis today, being that I have little time and have to send email to everybody to tell them I'm going to be on an island trip for the next 5 days so I'll be out of touch. Hopefully there will be some good photos taken! And I will post those that I get if I see any cephs! I know Dr. Wood is going to be diving, so maybe he will encounter some cephalopods and post them to cephbase.

Keeping my 1st pair of arms crossed that I see some cuttles,

Saul

:smile:
 
Saul,

Thanks for the great summary! We're all very jealous... :smile: Looking forward to learning anything else you can share from this event... and photos! The CIAC Website offers precious little info.
 
Sedusa, terrible news about Kir Nesis; it came as a shock to read something like that online, but I'd been offline from the ceph community for most of Jan/Feb. He really was the most brilliant teuthologists I'd met, and an exceptionally nice and approachable guy. Does anyone have any more details, as in what happened? I'll make a few enquiries.
O
 
Thanks Jean; I've not found anything out myself, but people are still returning from the conference.
Steve
 
Re: CIAC 2003 - A visitor's perspective

What happened to Annabelle was quite serious but I've heard, but not been able to confirm, that she is recovering from surgery and is OK. I expect that there will be some reliable news soon.
 
Re: CIAC 2003 - A visitor's perspective

I'm back from the very successful 2003 CIAC (Cephalopod International
Advisory Council) meeting in Phuket, Thailand and am happy to share some images
from the trip with anyone who is interested. After the meeting, five
of us chartered a 43 foot catamaran for 5 days of diving in the
Similian Islands, a marine park. Also, Ruth (who won the studnet
poster contest) and I rented a 100 CC motorcycle/scooter and explored
many temples, beaches and street shops in south Phuket. Thailand is
beautiful, as you will soon see.

Below are four sets of images from this trip. The first is topside
images of Thailand and includes temples, orchids, etc. The second set
contains underwater images mostly from the Similian Islands. The third

set contains images from the actual CIAC meeting. It usually takes a
minimum of 2-3 months for the editing, captioning and quality control
to add images to CephBase. The forth set contains a sneak preview of
images that will soon be submitted to CephBase. Images were taken with

a Fuji S2 digital camera; this is the first time I've shot underwater
with this rig.

For the larger sets of images, use the scroll bar on the bottom of the
web page to display the rest of the thumbnails. Click on any thumbnail

to enlarge it. Enjoy.


Thailand (on land)
http://www.cephalopodpage.com/temp/web7/

Thailand (underwater)
http://www.cephalopodpage.com/temp/web6/

CIAC Meeting
http://www.cephalopodpage.com/temp/web5/

Images For CephBase (Idiosepius, Octopus)
http://www.cephalopodpage.com/temp/web8/

Dr. James B. Wood
CephBase Project Manager
National Resource Center for Cephalopods
University of Texas Medical Branch
Galveston, TX 77555-1163
(409) 747-2934
 
Re: CIAC 2003 - A visitor's perspective

ceph said:
What happened to Annabelle was quite serious but I've heard, but not been able to confirm, that she is recovering from surgery and is OK. I expect that there will be some reliable news soon.

Lattest update, sounds like she will be OK in time.

This is Willy Campos, Annabelle's husband. Annabelle is doing fine. Her
recovery has been smooth, although it will take a few more months to get to
where she was before the accident. She is physically okay and can do most
things (going to the toilet, taking a bath, eating etc.) by herself now,
although rather slowly. The doctor has allowed her to stay home, but will
require periodic visits to the neurologist. Judging from her progress, she
may be able to return to work in 4-5 months, on a slower pace of course.

The doctor also said that she had a very good "guardian angel". Many many
thanks for the prayers and for the moral support.

Willy Campos
 
corw314 said:
Excellent Pictures!

Who are the speakers? I know who spoke, but am not sure who's who!

Carol :smile:

That temp web site is my quick and dirty way to display some images for those who want to see them soon. I'm honestly not going to have time to write captions for the temp site but many of those images will support other projects like CephBase and the new CIAC page where they will have full captions.
 

Shop Amazon

Shop Amazon
Shop Amazon; support TONMO!
Shop Amazon
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Back
Top