Fun Things to do at Scientific Meetings

Bring popcorn to talks. Comment on the plot to a neighbor. If someone stands up to ask a question, shout "Down in front!"
Give your entire talk in Swedish Chef.
Ask the audience for Amens every time you make a point. If that succeeds, try for a "Hell yeah!"
Make up a new field in your discipline. Give a totally bogus talk on the topic. See if anyone calls you on it.
Bring a pet. Seat him or her in the front row. Take questions from your pet at the end of your talk. (Bonus points if the pet is exotic, dangerous or a fish.)
Tell your audience you will now show them a movie of your data. Turn on the overhead projector and rapidly flip transparencies up.
Refuse the mic and holler your whole talk. As a bonus, gradually get softer until you are whispering near the end.
Deliver your talk in reverse. (Doing the slides backwards is actually a good idea. So try to actually speak backwards, either in word-order or by reversing the pronunciation of every word, too.)
Include subliminal messages, such as "You want beer" "This is a good talk" or "Send me money".
Include "I deserve funding" as a conclusion in every presentation you make.
Slowly strip as your talk progresses. Bonus points if you can use part of your body not normally exposed as a prop.
If you have a poster, attach it to the wall backwards. If you have a talk, black out every other word. Say this is for national security reasons.
If you're an astronomer, include black images. Point out that you took the images at night, so of course they're black.
Include a Surgeon General's warning on your presentation. ("Warning: This talk might cause headaches, runny nose, sore through, genital warts, projectile vomiting and the bends.")
Carry a sidearm at your presentation. If someone starts to ask a question, make your hand twitch towards it, as if to draw it quickly. Bonus points if it's a squirt or Nerf gun and you actually shoot the questioner.
Two thirds of the way through your talk, stop for a minute, then say "No, I am totally wrong in all of this. Forget I said anything. Sit back down.
Challenge a questioner (if you're speaking) or a speaker (if you're in the audience) to a duel to prove who is right. As a weapon, pick okra at 10 paces.
Get the audience to do the wave. This is especially good if you aren't the speaker.
Criticize your own poster. Cross bits out and scribble comments in the margin.
Go to the talks with a Jack Daniels bottle. When it's your turn, get up front, finish the bottle and begin. Bonus points if you start with a full bottle. (Alcohol is not required in this case, as long as you have something that looks like the alcohol usually found in the bottle.)
If using Powerpoint (or Javascript and HTML), make your slides change bullets to things like, "When will this guy shut up?" Extra points if you set it to change back right before you turn around and look.
Heckle à la Statler and Waldorf (from The Muppet Show).
Attend the meeting pretending to be some noteworthy, but notably dead, person in your field. Spend the entire meeting speaking and answering as s/he would have. Bonus points if you remember to only use information that the person would have known about at the time of her/his death. (So if you're Newton, for example, you can't talk about thermodynamics or relativity.)
Address all questions by questioning the person's patriotism/loyalty. Bonus if you can prove (or otherwise convince others) that the person has weapons of mass destruction.
Have friends dressed as Imperial Strom Troopers flank you where ever you go. Have them menace anyone who disagrees with you. For a bonus, plant a friend in the audience. Have him or her ask the first question. Do a Vader-like strangling thing. Politely ask for more question.
Include a laugh track or soundtrack in your talk.
If you're a grad student, have a friend shoot at your advisor with a squirt or nerf gun at a predetermined time. Just in time, shout "Nooooooo" and take the water/Nerf dart with your body. Bonus if you do this while your advisor is giving her or his presentation.
Stop talking every five minutes, glance nervously between the audience and the entrance to the room, and mutter something about the lions always being late.
Bring a book to your talk. If someone questions your facts, cite the "Holy Book" which is divinely inspired and therefore infallible. Bonus points if the book is a text for a totally different field. (e.g. – A high-energy nuclear physics text as evidence in a cognitive psychology talk.) Extra bonus points of the book isn't even a work of non-fiction. (Citing such books as How the Grinch Stole Christmas or Winnie-the-Pooh would be very good.)
Midway through your talk or your poster presentation, suddenly look frightened by something in your slides or on your poster. Quickly tear off the offending portion and swallow it. Look suspiciously at your colleagues. Bonus points if you consume something really inocculous, like a definite article or the date of the talk.
At the first question of your talk/poster, pause, look stunned and confused, then panic and run from the room in hysterics.
Attend all of the session in your bathrobe and fuzzy slippers. For an added effect, carry a cup of coffee, a donut and a newspaper.
At random points in random talks, burst out with statements about future events in the past tense. For instance, "What? Wu showed that that was false in 2251!"
Pretend something you saw on Star Trek or some other sci-fi/fantasy show is real science. For instance, ask a presenter why he didn't just use Heisenberg Compensators.
Cite non-existent sources or research to support your claims. Or use real sources, but make up the conclusions not in or supported by the paper. Bonus if you do this to one of the authors.
Affect a thick accent. If someone asks you to speak more clearly, change to a different, equally thick accent.
Do your poster in Braille.
Argue with your co-authors about the research being presented in the middle of their talk or yours. Particularly, disagree completely about the conclusions. End the argument with, "This is not what we agreed to say we found! Now I have to spend another 3 hours with Photoshop to create more data!"
Bring a pillow to the talks. Or a portable TV.
Affect a foreign accent and spend the entire meeting describing the research being presented on a cellphone. If anyone asks, tell them that your country could only afford to send on person, so you're briefing all of the other scientists back home.
Ask about potential military applications to the research under discussion, especially if you're in a very abstract field, like astronomy or pure mathematics. Ask your colleagues how they can live with themselves, creating suffering like this.
Give out handouts for your talk/poster that have nothing to do with your poster. Bonus if your handouts are junk mail or take-out menus. Cite the handouts in your research.
Encrypt your talk/poster/handouts. Refuse to give the key to anyone who doesn't submit to your "security background check." Alternatively, make the talk/poster/handouts a stream of 1's and 0's and tell people that they're in binary for portability. (Bonus if you really convert your talk/poster/handout into binary.)
Read your poster/talk/handouts as if to small children. Bonus if you write your presentation that way. ("Ethel the free-radical was walking along one day when she met Vitamin C. Ethel was scared...")
When basic concepts from you field come up, like Newton's laws of motion, pretend like you've never heard of them. Make others explain them to you and then say something like, "Wow, when did that get published?"
For your poster, put up a dorm-room type poster. (Such as attractive people in swimsuits, pretty scenery or movie posters.) Cite the poster in later publications.
Do a product placement in your presentation. ("Ahh, Pepsi! The drink of nuclear physicists!")
During your presentation, give a pop quiz. Grade them and hand them back later in the meeting.
Instead of reserch, show photographs from your last vacation. Keep the research conclusions, however.
Carry a pad of paper with columns clearly labelled "subversive" and "loyal". Make sure people can read it clearly. Add people to the appropriate categories. Mumble things like, "John Ashcroft will be so pleased with me!"
Bring a barbecue grill into the meeting room. Have a friend wander up and down the seats selling hot dogs you've been cooking. Bonus points if you use the grill for a demonstration in your talk.
Have as one of your main conclusions something that is clearly false, such as the absence of any life on Earth or proof that the universe is geocentric.
If anyone objects to a point you make during the talk, respond with "Objection overruled!" or other appropriate legalese. Charge the dissenter with contempt.
Fall asleep while giving your talk.
Bring your SO with you. Have loud, angry spats and tender reconciliations on alternate days. Make the arguments about technical points of research being presented. ("What?!? You believe in an inflationary universe? I can't believe I slept with you, you imbecile!")
Cordon off your poster. Have a large bouncer at the entry area. Charge a two-drink minimum.
As part of your presentation, have a guitar riff or drum solo. Act like it was a vital bit of evidence for your conclusions.
During the presentation, keep moving closer to the door, an inch at a time. If you are in the audience, shuffle your chair with you.¹
Put up an extremely complicated diagram. Stare at it for a while with your hand on your chin. Look to the audience and nod, going "mmmMMMMmmm." Then go to the next slide.¹
Begin your presentation by producing a bottle of clear, yellow liquid. Ask if everyone has remembered to bring their 'samples'. Say that, if not, they'll all have to share.¹
Hold your hand up in the middle of the meeting. Wait for the presenter to stop and say "Yes?". Then point to the person next to you and say "She's playing games!"¹

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this list.

Have something to suggest? Email it to me.

1 — Contributed by Justin Roux. Thanks!

John Weiss

Last modified: Wed Apr 30 18:02:40 MDT 2003