AAAS
cmonforton | December 23, 2015The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) deserves credit for standing with worker safety and victims of egregious safety violations. The group’s Section on Chemistry voted not to move forward with the nomination of UCLA professor Patrick Harran as an AAAS fellow. They made the announcement yesterday. Harran has four criminal felony charges pending against him for willfully violating workplace safety standards at his UCLA laboratory. Those charges were brought by the Los Angeles County District Attorney (DA) following a criminal investigation into the 2009 death of lab…
oracknows | January 5, 2015
NOTE: There is a follow up to this post.
The holidays are over. Time to start dishing out fresh Insolence, Respectful and, as appropriate, not-so-Respectful for 2015.
I do, however, feel obligated to deal with one painfully inappropriate action by a major science journal left over from 2014. It happened in an issue that came out just before Christmas, and, with all the festivities, being on call last week, and having houseguests; so, unfortunately, I just didn't get around to addressing it, either here or on my not-so-super-secret other blog (where I might crosspost this later in the week).…
carlyo | April 24, 2014Discover the STEM Power of Lockheed Martin at the USA Science & Engineering Festival Expo in April
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to pilot the F-35 or a flying robot? Or how cold it is in Antarctica (a region known as the most frigid place on Earth)? In addition to what the next big thing in batteries is, and can medicine really be personalized for every individual? At Festival Expo 2014 you'll experience the answer to these and other questions in unforgettable ways with founding and presenting sponsor of the Festival, Lockheed Martin through exciting interactive,…
carlyo | October 30, 2013The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) – a maestro at making science come alive for K-12 students, teachers and the public – will once more bring its magic to the Festival next year, returning as a major sponsor and presenting a reprise of its wildly popular "Meet the Scientists" and "Science of Our Senses" hands-on encounters at Festival Expo 2014 – but this time with an added twist!
One of the founding sponsors of the USA Science & Engineering Festival, AAAS – the world's largest general scientific society – has long been a Festival partner, sharing common goals…
lborkowski | February 18, 2011The American Association for the Advancement of Science is holding its annual meeting in DC this week, and the organization is presenting awards to "professional journalists for distinguished reporting for a general audience." An endowment from the Kavli Foundation funds the awards program, which gives $3,000 and a plaque to each winner.
I wasn't surprised to see that the winners included Charles Duhigg's New York Times "Toxic Waters" series and Richard Harris and Alison Richards' NPR series "Follow the Science: Calculating the Amount of Oil and Gas in the Gulf Oil Spill" (here and here, too…
nisbetmc | July 27, 2010The announcement of this award is an important step towards greater recognition of the need for public engagement on the part of scientists and their institutions. AAAS should be commended for their commitment to leadership in this area. Details below and here.
It will be interesting to see the criteria by which nominations are judged. As I noted last month, how public engagement is ultimately defined, its goals and outcomes, remains an open question. (See also this comment.)
There is more major news on this front coming in August including the launch of a new blog, and a special issue…
dblum | July 5, 2010A couple days ago I received this note:
"There was an article in the Huffington Post not long ago about an extreme worst case scenario with the oil spill - that a giant methane bubble bursts through the sea floor, ignites, causes a huge supersonic tsunami that would wipe out all of Florida, followed by a vaporization tsunami.
I've heard this described as "disaster porn", and certainly, the scenario smacks of it. But, there have been extreme natural disasters in the past, and not being a geologist, I can't help but feel some alarm at this, as I'm currently a resident of Tampa. I have…
nisbetmc | February 25, 2010
Last week I presented at a workshop hosted by AAAS on "Promoting Climate Literacy Through Informal Science." There were a number of outstanding presentations and themes discussed including a plenary talk by historian Naomi Oreskes detailing the central arguments of her forthcoming book on the origins of the climate skeptic movement.
There are plans to make available online the various presentation materials, so I will post again when those are ready. In the meantime, I have pasted below the text from remarks I gave as part of a panel on framing. These remarks also follow closely some of…
bioephemera | April 14, 2009As I put it at a blogging panel last fall, "in science, it is normative to be not sure." It wasn't my most eloquent moment, but at least AAAS' president-elect Alice Huang agrees with me that one of the biggest challenges to public science literacy is understanding the contingent nature of scientific "truth".
But probably the most difficult concept to get across to nonscientists is that we look at data and then use probabilities to judge those data. The public wants an absolute black-and-white answer. We may look at something that is 80 percent likely as being good enough to base decisions on…
bioephemera | April 7, 2009There are two interdisciplinary science meetings coming up that you should consider attending, in NYC and DC. Strangely enough, the ubiquitous Chris Mooney is speaking at both of them. Hmmm.
From April 30-May 1 in DC will be the AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy, which is a somewhat wonky look at federal science policy and government affairs. The agenda highlight? A plenary session on the future of science journalism, to which I'm looking forward with both enthusiasm and curiosity, given the wide range of opinions on the blogosphere. I'm sure there will also be lots of discussion…