Executive Director's Blog

Yes, you did. At its Spring meeting on 17 May 2009, the AIBS Board of Directors passed the following resolution:

So the meeting format of two-days in the Spring in Washington DC that we've followed for the last ten years, which was itself a change from the previous format of larger multi-society meetings that we'd followed for almost 50 years, will be revised starting in 2010, when we'll launch an annual program of strategically timed, topic-specific, half-day events -- typically with three or four speakers -- in person and online via webinar in DC and elsewhere over the course of the year. The AIBS membership will be polled for comments on the new meeting format, and details will be announced later in 2009.

These new meetings will aim to capitalize on AIBS's unique status as a meta-level organization created to give biologists a collaborative voice and influence on the national scene. The meetings will coordinate with and build upon AIBS programs in public policy, research, education, publication in BioScience or ActionBioscience.org, and other areas of AIBS Board, staff, and member activity. They will provide networking opportunities for members with fellow scientists and decision-makers from other fields that small gatherings can do more effectively. And in each case, as much of their content as possible will be online, both as archived recordings and as real-time interactive webinars.

2010 AIBS President Joe Travis has expressed the new meeting concept nicely with the following note to his fellow AIBS Board members:

"A key component of success for [this annual program] of 1/2 day meetings is timeliness of topic. Sometimes timeliness of topic is determined by events -- a push for integrated environmental/climate research by the new administration might make a meeting on good examples of that kind of research or a meeting focused on emerging challenges of integrated research very timely.

"Sometimes timeliness might be determined by events unfolding "within science" -- a meeting focused on an emerging horizon of biology with clear implications for policy or education. We could even, say, join with the National Association of Biology Teachers for a conference about learning in science and what real research on learning is revealing, which was a theme of Bruce Alberts' recent talk at the 2009 AIBS annual meeting, "Why Redefining Science Education is the Key to Enhancing the Public Understanding of Science". This would argue that some meetings can be planned long in advance but perhaps others would be convened reasonably quickly in response to external or internal events."

At AIBS we're always having to keep in mind that we are no one's primary-affiliation society. People don't join AIBS in order to conduct their research or other primary professional activities in their disciplinary specialties--that's the role served by our member societies and organizations. Rather, we're an umbrella organization offering meta-level services and coalition activities--that's what it says right in the preamble to the AIBS Constitution:

Organizing annual meetings at AIBS carries special challenges because no one needs to attend an AIBS meeting in the same sense that they need to attend the meeting of their primary society(ies). In the latter case, individuals attend in order to network with their peers in their area of specialization, present research results, look for jobs, look for folks to hire, etc. But in the case of AIBS meetings, the same kind of draw is not there, or at least has not been there since 1998, which marked the 48th and final consecutive year that AIBS held its annual meeting in conjunction with the annual meetings of a number of its member societies. Those were big meetings with thousands of attendees.

However, by 1999, the member societies with whom we had been meeting had been become sufficiently robust (and the meeting-organizing business had sufficiently changed) that they could head off on their own and hold their own annual meetings. After a year of contemplation (during which the first-ever Presidents' Summit was held), AIBS began holding much smaller, thematically focused annual meetings, in Washington DC, during the March - May time period. The 2000 meeting was on the theme, not surprisingly, of Challenges for the New Millennium. Subsequent annual meeting themes have included: From Biodiversity to Biocomplexity (2001) * Evolution: Understanding Life on Earth (2002) * Bioethics in a Changing World (2003) * Invasive Species: A Search for Solutions (2004) * Biodiversity: The Interplay of Science, Valuation, and Policy (2006) * Evolutionary Biology and Human Health (2007) * Climate, Environment, and Infectious Diseases (2008) * and this year's meeting on May 18 - 19, "Sustainable Agriculture: Greening the Global Food Supply", which for the first time includes a live webcast component.

It is fitting that just as the Year of Science 2009 is getting underway, a neat new version of Crayon Physics is available. This is an award-winning 2D physics game for the computer (free as a demo) in which you experience what it would be like if your drawings and doodles acquired the properties of real physical objects with mass and momentum -- balancing, falling, bouncing, and swinging across the screen in a veritable Flatlandian world you create then set in motion. How high can you stack those squares? What's the arc of swing of that hammer? How much weight is needed to counterbalance that lever? Talk about testing an hypothesis against reality.

...along with a set of teaching resources for all grade levels, can be seen at the new Understanding Science website created by the folks at the University of California Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley. Currently in beta release, the website goes into full-featured release on January 5th at the Year of Science 2009 launch event in Boston that AIBS and other organizations are involved in.

Here's some of the press release information about what's going on in Boston right now:

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The Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science will hold a Year of Science 2009 launch event in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB), beginning January 3, 2009 at The Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel, Boston, MA. The SICB meeting will include plenary presentations emphasizing the benefits of an engaged public, a workshop that focuses on science communication, and several Science Cafes in the Boston community.

Ira Flatow, host of National Public Radio's Talk Of The Nation: Science Friday, and Dr. Sean Carroll, University of Wisconsin-Madison, will spotlight Year of Science 2009 with plenary presentations emphasizing the importance of public understanding of science and evolution.

John Durant, Director of the MIT Museum, Ben Wiehe, WGBH Educational Foundation, and Carl Zimmer, science writer, will share their respective expertise in science festivals, science cafes, and the benefits and impacts of blogging about science in a session to highlight communicating science in 2009.

YoS09 Launch Science Cafe and Celebration will bring together COPUS leadership, several regional hubs, and scientists for food, drink, and fun as we celebrate science together!

A special component of the meeting is the much-anticipated January 5th unveiling of the Understanding Science website and its new paradigm for portraying the process of science. Prominent and popular textbook author and Brown University professor Ken Miller will join forces with Natalie Kuldell of the MIT Department of Biological Engineering to officially launch the site at the Boston meeting. High school science teacher Dr. Kathleen Gorski in Wilbraham, MA was one of the first educators to preview the site and implement it in her classroom. She writes "... the materials have had a huge impact on my classes this year; I've been told 'that makes more sense [than what was learned earlier]' and the kids seem to understand how one does science at a much deeper level. It is still the early days of the course, but I am thrilled with their response!"

COPUS looks forward to similar activities at other professional meetings throughout the year. The strategy is simple: (1) partner with local organizations that can share their expertise and facilitate public engagement; (2) connect with the community about science, and (3) have fun.

To stay in touch with the activities and events of the Year of Science 2009 as they unfold, register your organization to become a participant in COPUS by completing the online form at www.copusproject.org. By becoming a part of this communication and collaboration network, adding Year of Science logos to your website and marketing materials during 2009, and spreading the word to others, you are helping promote these efforts.

An amazing presidential election yesterday, and a resounding demonstration of America's participatory democracy in action. New opportunities for the scientific community and the conduct of science for the public good lie ahead. Speaking of which...

I've blogged before about the terrific Understanding Science website that is being built by the folks at the University of California Museum of Paleontology, UC Berkeley. The website is now in beta release at www.understandingscience.org. The organizers invite you to review the site and let them know what you like, what you don't like, and what additional features you'd like to see when the website makes its official launch next January.

Quoting from the website's About section, its basic goal are to (1) improve teacher understanding of the nature of the scientific enterprise, (2) provide resources and strategies that encourage and enable K-16 teachers to reinforce the nature of science throughout their science teaching, and (3) provide a clear and informative reference for students and the general public that accurately portrays the scientific endeavor.

AIBS endorses the Understanding Science website project and considers it to be a integral part of our COPUS and Year of Science 2009 efforts with UCMP and other organizations to promote the public understanding of science. The website's official release next January will be in connection with the annual meeting, in Boston, of the AIBS member-society, the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, where COPUS will be launching its YoS09 events: see the press release.

This is it, folks. If you're eligible to vote in the November 4th U.S. elections, be sure to make your voice heard.

Familiarize yourself with candidates' support of scientific research and education: the Scientists and Engineers for America and ScienceDebate2008 websites are among the best sources for this information.

Consider, for example, what kind of administration and policies we need to have in place next January in order to be responsive to the forthcoming National Academies report, "A New Biology for the 21st Century: Ensuring that the United States Leads the Coming Biology Revolution." This report, scheduled to come out in 2009 (initial report by February, followed by public commentary, then the final report by October), will:

"...examine the current state of biological research in the United States and recommend how best to capitalize on recent technological and scientific advances that have allowed biologists to integrate biological research findings, collect and interpret vastly increased amounts of data, and predict the behavior of complex biological systems."

(quoting from the report's project scope -- for the rest of the scope, click here).

Above all, on November 4th, think of your country and your fellow citizens and VOTE.

[30 October Update: This project's website remains open for public comment; see link below]

On 21 October 2008 the National Academies announced that it is accepting comments on the committee membership and project scope for its forthcoming report, "A New Biology for the 21st Century: Ensuring that the United States Leads the Coming Biology Revolution."

The committee roster, project details, and a feedback form are provided on the project's website, which also announces the committee's first two meetings: 4 November 2008 and 3 December 2008, both of which include a public session.

AIBS is following this project closely.

The project's scope as stated at the above URL reads:

An ad hoc committee will examine the current state of biological research in the United States and recommend how best to capitalize on recent technological and scientific advances that have allowed biologists to integrate biological research findings, collect and interpret vastly increased amounts of data, and predict the behavior of complex biological systems. Among the questions the committee may address are:

An individually-authored summary of the Summit's proceedings will be published. Subsequently, in its report to be issued at the end of the study, the committee will recommend actions that federal policy makers can take to ensure that the United States takes the lead in the emergence of a biological science that will support a higher level of confidence in our understanding of living systems, thus reducing uncertainty about the future, contributing to innovative solutions for practical problems, and allowing the development of robust and sustainable new technologies. The committee will not make specific budgetary or government organizational recommendations.

AIBS has added a YouTube Channel to its lineup of free online lectures and interviews with some of the world's most eminent biologists. Now online are 18 archival recordings from the year 2000 that include interviews with Stephen Jay Gould, E.O. Wilson, Gene Odum, and a remarkable conversation between Ernst Mayr and Michael Robinson, former director of the National Zoo in Washington DC.

Here's the Ernst Mayr interview (copyright Smithsonian Institution, with whom AIBS held its 2000 Annual meeting):

And here's the Stephen Jay Gould interview:

We'll continue to add to the YouTube postings while we also continue to build the AIBS Media Library, which currently contains more than 70 plenary lectures recorded at AIBS Annual meetings from 2000 onwards, with audio, video, slides, and transcripts. The themes of these meetings have been:

2008 - Climate, Environment, and Infectious Diseases
2007 - Evolutionary Biology and Human Health
2006 - Biodiversity: The Interplay of Science, Valuation, and Policy
2004 - Invasive Species: The Search for Solutions
2003 - Bioethics in a Changing World
2002 - Evolution: Understanding Life on Earth
2001 - From Biodiversity to Biocomplexity
2000 - Challenges for the New Millennium

With plenary speakers including:

Steven Aftergood * Bruce Alberts * Rustom Antia * Francisco Ayala * Ann Bartuska * Stephen Bocking * Richard Boohar * John Brown * Carlos Bustamante * James Carlton * Jamie Rappaport Clark * Rita Colwell * Kathryn Cottingham * Ellis Cowling * Joel Cracraft * Andrew Dobson * Paul Ehrlich * Niles Eldredge * Daniel Esty * Durland Fish * Ira Flatow * Howard Frumkin * Douglas Futuyma * Arturo Gomez-Pompa * Stephen Jay Gould * Peter Grant * Rosemary Grant * Eric Green * Duane J. Gubler * James E Hansen. * Stephen L. Hoffman * Edward Holmes * Daniel Janzen * Alison Jolly * Phillip Kitcher * Carl Leopold * Simon Levin * Gene Likens * David Lodge * Thomas Lovejoy * Jane Lubchenco * Paula Mabee * Richard Mack * David Magnus * Terry Maple * Lynn Margulis * Chris Mooney * Robert Morris * Stephen Morse * Randall Murch * Shahid Naeem * Randolph Nesse * Matthew C. Nisbet * Richard B Norgaard. * Martin Nowak * Gordon Orians * Stephen R. Palumbi * Stephen Polasky * Sandra Postel * Sir Ghillean Prance * Nancy Rabalais * Loren Rieseberg * Paul Risser * David Rogers * Kim Stanley Robinson * Eugenie C. Scott * Daniel Simberloff * Sarah Tishkoff * Marvalee Wake * Douglas C. Wallace * Edward Wilson * Joy Zedler

The next set of lectures to be added to the Media Library will be those from the 2009 AIBS Annual meeting, scheduled for 18 - 19 May in Washington DC, on the theme of Sustainable Agriculture: Greening the Global Food Supply.