Posted on behalf of Rachel Courtland:

Greetings from New Orleans, which is likely jazzed to host the American Physical Society March Meeting, dedicated to all things solid state and condensed matter. Some conference-goers arrived over the weekend, enjoying sunny weather and steam-calliope music along the riverbank. But the weather turned cloudy this morning, driving everyone in to 40 early-morning sessions dedicated to everything from the latest results on graphene properties to the dynamics of shaking cat paws.

Conference organizers are waiting for registration to finish before declaring this physics conference 2008’s largest (it’s met with some rivals in recent years). But the program, which tops out at 665 pages, no longer has room to display short abstracts for each talk, an indicator there’s lots of great physics to be discussed.

After a quick cup of press room coffee, I’m off for round two of sessions. Stay tuned for more as the conference gets into a groove.