Our February 2012 meeting was held at Saint-Gobain Northboro Research and Development Center (NRDC). This was the first NESM meeting hosted by Saint-Gobain. NESM is very grateful to the NRDC staff for excellently organized meeting. We had a great tour through the research facility and a great dinner.
Our host, NRDC Director Dr. Rakesh Kapoor, gave a warm welcome and provided a very interesting introduction to the company’s long and rich history. We learned that Saint-Gobain was established in 1665! Dr. Kapoor set the stage for a very exciting meeting. He was followed by two superb technical talks:
Dr. Charles Bateman of Saint-Gobain NRDC presented on crystals as stacked layers and the infinite world of intergrowths. At the beginning of his talk, Dr. Bateman helped the audience to better understand, using a crystal models made of ping pong balls, face centered cubic and hexagonal closed packed crystal structures. He then presented his high profile electron microscopy research on a number of zeolite systems and discussed methods on how to describe and understand their structures.
Dr. Paloma Gonzalez Bellido of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole presented on the visual resolution of insect eyes. Dr. Gonzalez Bellido showed us the amazing world of insect eyes. It was eye-opening to learn about interdependence between high visual resolution and the number of lenses in large compound insect eye; between large, heavy and energetically costly eyes, and the large body needed to carry them. It was incredible to learn how quickly predatory insects must, in order to carry out a successful attack, process and relay visual information from the brain to the wings.
The meeting was a great success. We had a good turnout and all attendees enjoyed the beautiful facilities and dynamic and intriguing presenters.
Tigran Dolukhanyan
2012 Physical Sciences Director
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