It hit me when my mind wandered through a blog post by Robert Lee Hotz, a Wall Street Journal science writer, about research that explores the brain during sudden Eureka moments. Also a contributing factor was a book, that, as I'm reading it, makes me wonder whether it's smarter to be a nematode or a human.

What dawned on me was the beginning of an understanding how the Internet can be so ephemeral and yet so powerful.

I was one of about two dozen visitors Thursday who took a first look at the new Hamner Institute for Drug Safety Sciences. Also among the visitors was Janet Woodcock, a Food and Drug Administration top executive who oversees the approval and regulation of all U.S. medicines. Woodcock called the opening of the 14,000-square-foot research laboratory in Research Triangle Park a "milestone in drug safety regulation."

All today, I'll be attending the International Association of Science Parks XXVI World Conference on Science and Technology Parks at the Raleigh Convention Center. I'm here to capture some of the interesting conversations about the future knowledge ecosystems of the world. Monitor Science in the Triangle and http://twitter.com/mistersugar for my posts and tweets.

It's an encouraging historical fact that creativity rises when the economy tanks.

That means, the time to plant seeds for tomorrow's innovation is now, when the global economy is shrinking, unemployment is rising and one of the world's largest carmakers, General Moters, is about to restructure in the biggest industrial bankruptcy in U.S. history.