The Nobel Conference is an annual science event at Gustavus Adolphus College that is the first ongoing academic conference in the United States to have the official authorization of the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. This conference links a general audience, many of whom are students, to scholars and researchers in conversations centered on contemporary issues related to the natural and social sciences. It is by far the best event I have ever attended. They invite an average of six speakers to present on a selected topic over a two-day period in the fall of each year. Usually one or two speakers are current Nobel Laureates or have done work that may be deserving of the Nobel in the future. This conference took place on October 5-6, 2004. The other speakers were Leonard Hayflick, Dennis Selkoe, Cynthia Kenyon, Peter Whitehouse, and Laura Carstensen.
Following the presentation, each speaker is then seated at the main table along with all of the other speakers scheduled to appear. People in the audience are invited to send their written questions to the conference organizer, and a discussion occurs in the subsequent 20 minutes. Here is a video of the discussion that took place after my talk.