LAUSR

Lingering under the last rays of sun, I looked up above. Large windows on a wall were framing what appeared to be a small conference room. I could see a man at the far side of it. From his gestures I realized he was giving a seminar, the audience hidden tome. After fewminutes, I distinguished a handclapping and more people came in sight. A man and a woman, attracted like I was by the sunset in front of us, appeared on the front terrace, directly hanging on the sea. Light faded, and the streets behind claimedme back to the village. A few days later I left Camogli, the sea, and that summer. The image of the conference and the pair on the terrace very vivid in my memory. Later that year, at a dinner in Zurich, I was introduced to Massimo Vassalli, friend of a friend and fellow scientist visiting from Genova. Our shared research interests became immediately evident. We both were leading groups that developed engineering technologies for the application to biological and medical investigations. Mechanobiology was our common field. How we never met at a conference?