The Quizbowl Resource Center

I wish to formally announce something that I've been meaning to write for a long time - The Joshua Lederberg Memorial Science Open: Of Plasmids and People. This event will be played during Minnesota Open, either Saturday night or during the day on Sunday, and is currently being edited by myself, Evan Silberman, Zhao Zhang, Stevejon "Alan" Guth, Bruce Arthur, Alejandro Lopez-Lago, and Andrew Hart. The difficulty will be (ACF Nationals +/- epsilon) on tossups, and somewhere between Regionals and Nationals on bonuses. It will feature the following distribution:

5/5 Biology (At least 1/1 Ecological or Evolutionary, other 4/4 from Immunology, Genetics, Cell Biology, Biochemistry, Developmental Biology, and Neuroscience; these kind of blur together)
5/5 Chemistry (No more than 3/2 or 2/3 organic, shooting for 2/2)
5/5 Physics
1/1 Astronomy
2/2 Mathmatics/Computer Science (max 2/1 or 1/2 each)
1/1 Geology
1/1 Grab Bag (More Earth Science/Astro/Philosophy of Science)
1/1 Trash (Science from TV, Video Games, Literature, etc)

No more than 3 tossups per game will be what I consider "very hard".

We're currently aiming for 8 packets of 21/21, though that may change if I finally run out of things to write (in which case I'd switch to tossup-only). I'm not sure what the going rate for side events is nowadays, but I'm going to ask for a flat fee of $5/player. This tournament doesn't have to be a doubles-only event; triples and quadruples are fine, though I'd prefer not to see Seth, Mike, Selene, and Jerry on one team, for example.

The Quest for the Historical Mukherjesus wrote:being edited by myself, Evan Silberman, Zhao Zhang, Stevejon "Alan" Guth, Bruce Arthur, and Alejandro Lopez-Lago.

One of these things is not like the other!

Well, I'll definitely play.

grapesmoker wrote:

The Quest for the Historical Mukherjesus wrote:being edited by myself, Evan Silberman, Zhao Zhang, Stevejon "Alan" Guth, Bruce Arthur, and Alejandro Lopez-Lago.

One of these things is not like the other!

Eric, Evan, Zhao, Stevejon and Alejandro are Jacksonian Democrats!?

grapesmoker wrote:

The Quest for the Historical Mukherjesus wrote:being edited by myself, Evan Silberman, Zhao Zhang, Stevejon "Alan" Guth, Bruce Arthur, and Alejandro Lopez-Lago.

One of these things is not like the other!

Well, I'll definitely play.

Impugn my teammate's tossups on hippos and giraffes at your own peril.

Man, I hope that Trash Science gets its own side event at some point. Perhaps that will be yet another of my eccentric side events.

Assuming I go to MO I'll play this. Hopefully my skills in figuring out "urine tests" will aid me once again at a science event.

While I'd like to play this tournament and demonstrate how much I really suck at science, I'm willing to contribute my slightly-better science writing skills to the set, especially if no West Coast mirror materializes.

I thought I was going to be working on this too :(

So no physiology/anatomy/medicine/taxonomy in this tournament?

Eärendil wrote:So no medicine/taxonomy in this tournament?

Thank you, Eric.

recfreq wrote:

Eärendil wrote:So no medicine/taxonomy in this tournament?

Thank you, Eric.

Haha. There will be disease/pharmacology/etc stuff at this tournament, if you want to consider that medicine, and there will be tossups on organs if you want to consider that anatomy. I'm going to try to approach it from a molecular/basic science angle; I'd consider the tossup I edited on Kaposi's sarcoma at Regionals an example of this.

Also taxonomy may come up to fill space, but it will not be very prevalent at all.

Also, sorry for not mentioning you Andrew; you are in fact editing, its just when the doc listed the collaborators I forgot to scroll. Dwight, I'd be happy to have you help out, just email me your google account at InfiniteStryker0 at gmail dot com. This goes to anyone else who wants to edit - I'm especially looking for people who can contribute some ideas to physics, because I'm hitting some more writers' block than I'd like.

Sounds awesome -- can't wait to play.

Even if there will not be a lot of medicine, pathology, pharmacology, anatomy, and physiology during these doubles, triples, or quadruples, I can play anytime from Friday night through Sunday night.

Remembering Jack Kemp,
Rom Masrour
CPS/UIC

Brief update:

I believe the word is that this event will be held on Sunday during the day. Its still 8 packets of 21/21, with somewhat lengthy tossups (what can I say, there's some vanity here) and the same distribution as posted above. Two things:

1. We're currently well on pace to finish - we have about 30/45 left total. If anyone is interested in writing a bit of "other" (philosophy of science and science trash specifically, the rest has been placed in very capable hands), I would certainly welcome the help. There's also 3/0 bio, 2/0 physics, and 0/25 chemistry remaining, which I could certainly use help on. The faster I can get these done, the faster I can do a second-wave edit and perhaps add in powers.

2. I'd like to get a better idea of the field I can expect for this event, so please post here if you're planning to play. I need time to come up with a schedule and clever team names. So far I have:

Jerry V
Mike S
Jeremy E
Mike B
Rom M
Gautam K
Jonathan M
Charlie D
Brendan B
Ike J
Billy B
Michael H
Surya S.
Phil G.

Staff:
Trevor D
Rob C
Mike C

EDIT: Current team naming theme is "offensive drosophila gene names"

Looks like I'll be here, so looks like I'll play.

I will probably play this if just for the CS, but if there is a shortage of staff I can do that too.

I'll staff this unless there's a surplus of staff, in which case I'd play.

I intend to play this tournament.

I plan on playing.

I can staff or do whatever for this.

So what's the deal with team size? Billy Beyer and I plan on playing together, but should we be looking for additional teammates? I'd prefer a strict team size cap so that people can more easily form teams; if that's not in the cards, then maybe a draft would be better.

Hmm, maybe a draft would be a good idea; it'll probably make the tournament go faster also. Who would be the captains, though?

Just rank the top X people in terms of how good you think they'll do at your tournament.

hey, it'd be great to hear this at the UCLA site too. Ian and Eric? May be mail out the questions to someone other than Ian, get some rooms for 18th the Sunday and bundle it up with Mike's lit event?

I'd be happy to send this to any mirror, just make sure the appropriate email addresses are in my inbox. MIT if you want to mirror this, step up now.

A couple of us from Michigan are interested in playing.

The Quest for the Historical Mukherjesus wrote:MIT if you want to mirror this, step up now.

This.

Troubles with finding appropriate Sunday flight times have caused me to drop. Sorry.

squareroot165 wrote:A couple of us from Michigan are interested in playing.

Updated - Michael and I will play; and probably also Phil Guan.

I plan on staffing this, if at all useful.

I'm looking for a teammate for this.

Glacier wrote:I'm looking for a teammate for this.

I believe there are going to be captains and a draft.

I would like to play.

Stats are up: http://limozeen.googlepages.com/lederbe ... dings.html

theMoMA wrote:Stats are up: http://limozeen.googlepages.com/lederbe ... dings.html

Boy, am I awful at science or what?