If I write an entry about new writing (average readership of a first-time novelist maybe 500 people if they're lucky) or UK bookselling (average value of an account to an independent bookseller for Macmillan Distribution thus including publishers such as Bloomsbury, Walker Books, Guinness etc but excluding sales through wholesalers, less than £2000 per annum) we get a full postbag of comments and private emails to me. Whenever I write about science (average readership of a highly complex paper in Nature 15,000, total registered users 2 million) there is a resounding silence. The two cultures still operate. Why is it that book publishing only rarely closes the gap?

In any event I promised you more about our Science Foo Camp and here is the link. For those who can't be bothered to go there here is one para that sums it up:

Science Foo was the best conference I can remember in my life, and I've been to a lot of them... Thinking about what made this Foo different from all other conferences, I realized that people brought their whole selves to this conference, their hopes, foibles, humor, outrageousness, brilliance, good intent, and little to no ego in the "look at me" sense. It was fantastic.