In 2007, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) initiated a series of conversations with faculty members, administrators, and other stakeholders, seeking input on ways to improve undergraduate biology education to better prepare all students for the biology-related challenges of the twenty-first century (http://visionandchange.or...

Science, founded in 1880, Is published each Friday by the American Association for the Advancement of Science at the Business Press, 10 McGovern Ave., Lancaster, Pa. Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office at Lancaster, Pa., January 13, 1948, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Acceptance for mailing at the special rate postage provided for in the Act of February 28. 1925, embodied in Par...

During the George W. Bush administration, intense debate focused on the administration’s interference with the work of government scientists. In this study, analyzing a May/June 2009 survey of members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), we evaluate the factors during this period that influenced scientists’ awareness of political interference and their media outrea...

W HEN we write an article, we usually do so for three constituencies. First, we write it for ourselves. No action more clearly codifies a research endeavor than writing an article about the research. Flaws and gaps become apparent and are corrected or filled, and new lines of inquiry present themselves. To quote Norman Mailer, " I don't know what I think until I write it down. " Second, we writ...

William A. Gamson is professor of Sociology and a staff member of the Center for Research on Conflict Resolution at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Power and Discontent for which he received the 1969 Sorokin Award of the American Sociological Association. He is also the author of a teaching game, SIMSOC : Simulated Society and a forthcoming book with André Modigliani, Unt...

395 A lthough physicists, chemists, and engineers have long had their own salary surveys, no one until recently has tried to keep tabs on the sprawling biological research community. This summer the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which publishes Science, filled that gap with the first-ever salary survey of its 70,000 life sciences members in the United States. Membe...

A brief report is given of the October 1984 semiannual meeting of the Professional Society Ethics Group, which comprises 26 societies affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. At the meeting, a representative of the American College of Physicians (ACP) discussed a new ACP Ethics Manual written by an ad hoc committee of the ACP to address major ethical issues enco...

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are plants or animals whose genetic make-up has been transformed by recombinant DNA technology, which has new features such as resistance to herbicides, virus and insect. Recently, genetic modification of food products has increased in order to reduce world poverty and hunger and increase food production However, the impact of GMOs on the human health is a ...