Presenting to an International Audience

I am giving a presentation today at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Laboratoire de Physique to my collaborators.  I want to make a good impression and wow them, but I don't know exactly what to present.  I have a few different approaches to presenting my research depending on the audience.  But, I have trouble reading the audience internationally.  I have a hard time not using colloquialism or slang terms that may not translate well.  I tend to talk very fast when I am talking about something I am passionate about.  When I get into talking about my work, I get excited, and start talking faster.  I am also talking to Biophysics and Chemistry scientists that are much more mathematically and theoretical than I have been trained.  One of my goals here is to expand my knowledge from the Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology field into the Biophysics field.  The Biophysics field is dealing with the connections between the individual atoms that are involved in biological processes.  

Think about the earth as a whole.  From far off in space it looks like a nice round ball spinning and revolving around a nice little star.  As you examine it closer, you start to see that the surface is not a constant, it has different colors being reflected from the different surfaces, water, land, vegetation, ice, and rock.  if we look closer at any of those particular places, we see that they are not homogeneous and they too have variations with them.  Move closer, we can observe the different elements interacting on each surface, water running, animals eating vegetation, clouds forming, rain causing landslides, and many other interactions.  If we investigate any of the individual landscapes, we find colonies of animals, plants, and different ecological systems each with a specific role in the whole system.  Each level of inspection takes what we observed as a single item and expands it into a set of interactions among elements in that view.

This analogy works for the different layers of observation starting from our world and looking into smaller and smaller realms.  The cell, the nucleus, the DNA, the proteins, the  molecules, the atoms, the individual bonds and interactions among the atoms.  That is the level that these scientist are working.  I am at the level proteins (molecules comprised of many atoms) interacting with DNA (also molecules of many atoms).  Going back to our view from outer space, if were both looking at a wooden bridge, they would be looking at the connections between individual boards and describing the nails used.  I would be looking at how that bridge was used to transport cars and trucks from one side to the other.

They have a different perspective.  It will be interesting to see how my ideas are perceived.