If you weren't one of the 200 or so people invited to Science Foo Camp this year, you can experience a snippet of the “gathering of geeks” that took place earlier this summer at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California. A video produced by Nature podcast producer Charlotte Stoddart has been posted on The Great Beyond blog (http://tinyurl.com/mfe4g4).

The film shows just how an 'unconference' runs — with attendees rushing to scribble down their own agenda on the first day. Talks such as “Can biology help us understand the financial crisis?” and “Is 'evil' in our brains and can we control it?” peppered the whiteboard. The gathering included people such as the mathematician who designed a non-reversing mirror and the co-founder of http://DIYbio.org, an online community for amateur scientists.

Tim O'Reilly, chief executive of O'Reilly Media and after whom Foo is named (friends of O'Reilly), points out, “If you had a bunch of really smart people over to your house, would you think you had to have a programme? Of course they're going to find things to talk about!”