Another great set of SciFoo photos from Bob Lee

"Having just touched down in London from SciFoo 2008, I stare, tinged with jetlag, at the blank page and wonder how anyone could adequately summarize a get-together so bizarrely wonderful."

"Like last year there was a lot of discussion about Open Science but it seemed that this year there was more focus on the positive and actually getting things done."

"It’s a weekend of interactive sessions. All delegates are also presenters. There’s no agenda until we get there and then it is determined collaboratively and subject to change throughout the weekend" "199 geniuses and one science comedian (that would be me). I’m thrilled and not a little intimidated."

Brilliant cartoons depicting pre-SciFoo anxiety

"the most amazing couple of hours where every SciFoo Camper introduced him/herself, their affiliation and three words/phrases which they felt described their interests... Picture a room full of 200 of the brightest minds in (and around) science, and hearing each say the three most compelling things they can think of to describe their work."

I love this place. Alongside Jane Lubchenco, I ran a session on a new social contract for science, looking at the politics of science and the potential for a new breed of citizen scientists....Pitching into the discussion were Phil Campbell, Martin Rees, Paul Rabinow and Steve Schneider....My excitement and confusion has only been compounded by the discovery of free ice cream. If you asked a seven-year-old to design a conference, this is what they would come up with.

"Today, I had the opportunity to talk with Charles at Science Foo Camp, a mind-blowing "unconference" of scientists, big thinkers, and other people much smarter than I, hosted by O'Reilly Media, Nature Publishing, and Google."

Every year Edge publishes a Summer Postcards edition. For the 2007 edition, here are photos (mine and those of other Edge contributors) from SciFoo Camp—the unclassifiable O'Reilly/Nature/Google meeting of the minds now in its second year. —George Dyson