@jonsca me too

@NickStauner I am in Ohio for a week this month, unfortunately it is in Columbus for this event. So close and yet so far away.

@StaceyAnne Seems to me that one could answer more liberally: "When it's affordable / covered (mostly) by insurance and there's any cause for suspicion." Ideally, there shouldn't be any harm in getting checked out, but one should be aware of the effects being diagnosed can have on self-esteem and one's sense of identity, and should approach the process both skeptically and with eagerness to learn / study.

@ArtemKaznatcheev Only about 135 minutes away; that's not so bad. I'll have my car, but I don't know if the furniture moving truck will have arrived by then...they can't yet tell me what specific day they'll arrive. I've got some appointments on the 15th already, but otherwise I think I might be able to get away. I doubt anyone's expecting me to get really busy with the postdoc in that first week.

Tell me if I'm misunderstanding your presentation abstract: cancer populations (tumors?) are typically presumed to be homogeneous in terms of how their cells grow vs. spread (mutually exclusive processes?), but your model suggests that cells toward the edge of a tumor might be more likely to spread than cells toward the center of an otherwise non-invasive tumor. Is that anywhere near the mark?

@NickStauner, thanks. I guess it can go either way in regards to self-esteem/identity. On the one hand a dignosis can make someone feel like they're supported and not alone ("There's help for me!"), on the other it can make someone feel like they're officially certified to be not-normal ("I'm broken"). It makes me realise how important it is to deal with these feelings when someone is diagnosed (especially the latter case).