LJ wrote:
When will the results of the conference presentation be available to us unwashed?

Alex writes:
It depends on one's definition of "results." In a sense, the abstract itself is a "result," though preliminary, and will serve as the basis of Stoker's presentation to the conference, which, as most meetings are, is a venue for scientists to present their preliminary findings to peers for comments. For an account of what Stoker actually says in her oral presentation, one either needs to attend or read a secondhand account. At any rate, any feedback offered by colleagues is usually incorporated into a refinement of the work into a final written product that is submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for publication.

If and when I see Stoker's "chlorophyll findings" published in a journal, then I'll get excited. That said, however, given the hype surrounding the McKay et al. interpretation of ALH84001, which was published in Science, my "excitement" is not a certainty.

Alex R. Blackwell
University of Hawaii