AAAS Annual Meeting Newsroom

Public Release: 19-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
Global natural hazard risk identification and international development
Two recent reports by the World Bank and the United Nations quantify the global exposure of populations and economic activity to natural hazards. A new effort by the United Nations Development Program and the ProVention Consortium, the Global Risk Identification Program, is now being designed which will provide the evidence base and standards-driven framework for national approaches to hazard mitigation in the context of sustainable development programs.

Public Release: 19-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
Caregivers hide actions to enhance careers
University faculty with family responsibilities may practice bias avoidance behaviors to hide their caregiving responsibility and to prevent biased, negative career implications, according to a Penn State labor studies expert.

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Public Release: 19-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
Understanding the tsunami
The Indian Ocean tsunami, the Katrina hurricane catastrophe and the Pakistan earthquake in late 2005 bear disquieting similarities in their consequences on human populations and highlight the fact that people in the lower rungs of society around the world are at far greater mortality risk from natural disasters than those who are better off.

Public Release: 19-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
Summer research programs for undergraduates evaluated nationally
When you give a college student the choice between a summer full of lazy mornings languishing on the couch or a summer getting up early to engage in scientific research in a full-fledged lab, the choice might seem to be easy. However, at Washington University in St. Louis and at other schools across the country, there are numerous undergraduates taking advantage of summer research opportunities.

Public Release: 19-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
Penn bioethics researcher gives talk on the neuroscience of ethics at AAAS Meeting
Paul Root Wolpe, PhD, Professor of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, will be presenting "Neuroscience and the Material Foundations of Ethics" at the 2006 AAAS Meeting in St. Louis, MO. As part of the February 19th symposium "Neuroscience of Ethics: Material Foundations of Moral Agency," Wolpe will discuss the implications for ethical thinking and action as discoveries about the relationship between brain structure and function and ethical decision-making begin to surface.

Public Release: 19-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
Early Americans faced rapid late Pleistocene climate change and chaotic environments
The environment encountered when the first people emigrated into the New World was variable and ever-changing, according to a Penn State geologist.

Public Release: 19-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
Organic diets lower children's exposure to two common pesticides
Organic diets lower children's dietary exposure to two common pesticides used in US agricultural production, according to a study by Emory University researcher Chensheng Alex Lu, PhD. The substitution of organic food items for children's normal diets substantially decreased the pesticide concentration to non-detectable levels.

Environmental Protection Agency

Public Release: 19-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
A comparative institutional analysis of intellectual property
Biotech innovations pop up every day. From medicines developed by large companies to ingenious solutions worked out by individuals in university labs, new technologies are poised to enter the marketplace. The question is, are patents helping or hurting this process? "Patents are essential to bringing biotechnology innovations from everyone -- not just well-funded corporations -- to the people," says F. Scott Kieff, JD, an associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Public Release: 19-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
Climate change, terrorism two big risks of 21st century
What sounds like the opening line of a joke -- "what does a melting polar cap and a suicide bomber have in common?" -- is actually at the center of how society understands and responds better to risk. Climate change and terrorism are two of the most pervasive risks of the 21st century – and among the most taxing to policy makers, said Tom Dietz, director of the Environmental Science and Policy Program at Michigan State University

Public Release: 19-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
Organic Center symposium examines children's pesticide risks
The lack of progress in reducing children's exposures to pesticides, despite passage in 1996 of the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA), will be highlighted during a symposium organized by The Organic Center at 1:45 p.m. (CT) on Sunday, February 19th at the 2006 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Public Release: 19-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
'Kelp highway' may have helped peopling of the Americas
If humans migrated from Asia to the Americas along Pacific Rim coastlines near the end of the Pleistocene era, kelp forests may have aided their journey, according to research presented today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting.

Public Release: 19-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
West Antarctic ice sheet: Waking the sleeping giant?
The contribution that key regions of the Antarctic ice sheet are making to global sea-level rise is a cause for concern according to Director of British Antarctic Survey (BAS), Professor Chris Rapley. Speaking this week at the AAAS annual meeting in St. Louis, he summarised the latest understanding from one of the frozen continent's most remote and inhospitable corners.

British Antarctic Survey

Public Release: 19-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
Shining a light on deep-sea vents: Science meets policy
A statement of commitment to responsible research practices in the deep sea will be unveiled by InterRidge, an international scientific collaboration, during the annual meeting of the AAAS in St. Louis, Missouri 19 February. The statement, written by key members of InterRidge on behalf of its 27 member countries, publicly reaffirms the science community's long-standing commitment to responsible research and provides a guideline for nongovernmental organizations, regulatory bodies, and researchers new to the field.

InterRidge

Public Release: 18-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting

Discrete and Computational Geometry
The changing nature of proof
Thomas C. Hales, the University of Pittsburgh Mellon Professor of Mathematics who famously proved Johannes Kepler's conjecture on the stacking of spheres, will discuss his current project to "prove the proof" at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in St. Louis, Mo., in a session titled "Paradise Lost? The Changing Nature of Mathematical Proof," Saturday, Feb. 18, from 9:45 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. (C.S.T.).

Public Release: 18-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
Early humans on the menu
You wouldn't know it by current world events, but humans actually evolved to be peaceful, cooperative and social animals, not the predators of modern mythology would have us believe, says an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis. Robert W. Sussman, PhD, a professor of anthropology in Arts and Sciences, spoke at a press briefing during the American Association for the Advancement of the Science's Annual Meeting at 2 p.m. on Feb. 18.

Public Release: 18-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
Computer interface design starts with respecting the real world
Computer interfaces often fall short or even fail, because designers overlook the physical nature of human beings and the real world. As computers become ubiquitous, designers must take everyday users into account from the beginning and prototype extensively to stay attuned to human needs and capabilities.

Public Release: 18-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
Mathematics in fact and fiction discussed at AAAS Annual Meeting
For 2,000 years, mathematicians seemed pretty secure in their pursuit of truth. They'd write down a carefully formulated statement, using the highly formal language of math, and put it out there for all to accept or disprove. The work typically was that of a single individual.

Public Release: 18-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
Making school-university partnerships a success
It is very common for cities to declare their intent to become the next telecommunications corridor, biotechnology hub, or some other kind of technological center. But what often goes unexamined is how the human resource development strategy aligns with the economic goals of the municipality. Building civic capacity to support the learning of science and mathematics is vitally important for St. Louis and other cities. To this end, partnerships between schools and universities to advance human development are critical.

Public Release: 18-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
Stanford Q&A: Neuroethicist on growing demand for ethical oversight
New ways of peering into the brain raise ethical questions about how research involving these technologies should be conducted. Judy Illes, PhD, director of the Program in Neuroethics at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, will be discussing these ethical issues.

Public Release: 18-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
There's something fishy about human brain evolution
Forget the textbook story about tool use and language sparking the dramatic evolutionary growth of the human brain.

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council

Public Release: 18-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
Astronomer announces shortlist of stellar candidates for habitable worlds
In the search for life on other worlds, scientists can listen for radio transmissions from stellar neighborhoods where intelligent civilizations might lurk or they can try to actually spot planets like our own in habitable zones around nearby stars.

Public Release: 18-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
Computer interface design starts with respecting the real world
To this day the Palm Pilot is a successful design of human and computer interaction that remains all too rare, says Stanford computer science Assistant Professor Scott Klemmer. Every time a person uses a computer-a desktop, a cell phone or even a chip-enabled coffee maker-the interaction is specified by an interface designer. These interfaces often fall short or even fail, Klemmer says, because designers overlook the physical nature of human beings and the real world.

Stanford University

Public Release: 18-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
Amazonian terra preta can transform poor soil into fertile
Some of the globe's richest soil -- known as terra preta, or Amazonian dark earths -- can transform poor soil into highly fertile ground. Because terra preta is loaded with so-called bio-char -- similar to charcoal -- it also can pull substantial amounts of carbon out of the increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere, helping to prevent global warming.

Public Release: 18-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
Search for alien life challenges current concepts, says U. of Colorado prof.
For scientists eying distant planets and solar systems for signs of alien activity, University of Colorado at Boulder Professor Carol Cleland suggests the first order of business is to keep an open mind.

Public Release: 18-Feb-2006

2006 AAAS Annual Meeting
Intellectual property law and the protection of traditional knowledge
Detractors of current patent systems say that the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples and local communities does not readily fit into the existing rules of the industrialized world. However, Charles McManis, JD, IP and technology law expert at Washington University in St. Louis, argues that "at least in the short run, existing intellectual property regimes offer the most realistic avenue for securing effective legal protection for traditional knowledge holders."


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