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The article announces the incoming Christmas Holiday meetings of Section Q of the American Association for the Advancement of Science wherein the International Council for Exceptional Children is invited to participate. It likewise invites readers to contribute their suggestions, opinions or comments.

Whether science can reach conclusions with substantial worldview import, such as whether supernatural beings exist or the universe is purposeful, is a significant but unsettled aspect of science. For instance, various scientists, philosophers, and educators have explored the implications of science for a theistic worldview, with opinions spanning the spectrum from positive to neutral to negative. To delineate a mainstream perspective on science, seven key characterizations or “pillars” of science are adopted from position papers from the world’s largest scientific organization, the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Based on those pillars and an examination of scientific method, I argue that the presuppositions and reasoning of science can and should be worldview independent, but empirical and public evidence from the sciences and humanities can support conclusions that are worldview distinctive. I also critique several problematic perspectives: asserting that science can say nothing about worldviews and the opposite extreme of insisting that science decisively supports one particular worldview; weakening science so severely that it lacks truth claims; and burdening science with unnecessary presuppositions. Worldview-distinctive conclusions based on empirical evidence are suitable for individual convictions and public discussions, but not for institutional endorsements and scientific literacy requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes to answer several questions that arise from the actions of American scientists between 1840 and 1890. How did the broader organization of science in the late nineteenth century create a system of professional disciplines? Why did the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) form, and why did specialized societies like the American Chemical Society (ACS) later found an organization separate from the AAAS? Why did these professional societies create journals, and how did these journals help to communicate science? This paper combines both quantitative textual analysis and qualitative historical and sociological methods within the context of nineteenth-century American science. It is hoped that by broadening the methods used, and by better understanding the early deliberations of scientists before there was a formal scholarly communication system, it may be possible to contextualize current debates about the need for changes in the scholarly communication system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the proceedings of a meeting between a dental organization and the American Association for the Advancement of Science which took place on December 30, 1932 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The article includes a summary of the meetings, a list of those who presented papers, and abstracts of the papers.

The article presents the discussion on career paths in parapsychology. Topics include American Association for the Advancement of Science containing the Parapsychological Association as a member organization; social science research in general often applied disproportionately to parapsychology; and ask personality traits, targets, and methods enhancing ESP results.

This paper proposes to answer several questions that arise from the actions of American scientists between 1840 and 1890. How did the broader organization of science in the late nineteenth century create a system of professional disciplines? Why did the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) form, and why did specialized societies like the American Chemical Society (ACS) later found an organization separate from the AAAS? Why did these professional societies create journals, and how did these journals help to communicate science? This paper combines both quantitative textual analysis and qualitative historical and sociological methods within the context of nineteenth-century American science. It is hoped that by broadening the methods used, and by better understanding the early deliberations of scientists before there was a formal scholarly communication system, it may be possible to contextualize current debates about the need for changes in the scholarly communication system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three mathematics and science educators reexamine and reflect on their teaching within the context of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS) and National Council of Mathematics 'call to make math and science education accessible to all. The paper highlights the importance of teachers reflecting on their teaching practices in order to create opportunities for their students especially those in the urban setting. The educators argue that teachers' reflection on their teaching can cause them to recognize and validate their students' ways of knowing as they identify the students' hidden/concealed abilities that are often masked by their behaviors. The educators discuss their experiences and highlight the lessons that they learned about ways to prepare teachers to successfully teach math and science students in urban settings. Culturally responsive pedagogy and cultural competency are critical skills that teachers need to develop in order to teach all children, especially those in the math and science classroom in the urban setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the Policy Studies Organization (PSO). It is committed to social responsibility and believes that all organizations should contribute positively to the environment. Paul Rich of George Mason University is the president of the organization. Victoria Basolo is vice president and Harrell Rodgers is secretary. The Policy Studies Organization holds meetings with various associations including the Southern Political Science Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the International Studies Association. It also raises funds for three endowments and sponsors the Seymour Martin Lipset Endowment of the American Political Science Association.

In publishing ethics, self-plagiarism or text recycling is subject to a correction or retraction. This paper examines a high-profile case of ethical exceptionalism in the publishing status quo. Jennifer Couzin-Frankel, a science writer for the magazine Science, published by The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), was the first reporter to publicly reveal the identity of Brandon Stell, the President of The PubPeer Foundation, which owns PubPeer, a science whistle-blower website. The AAAS is a Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) member publisher. Couzin-Frankel published two articles, one of which self-plagiarized (i.e., the use of text written by the same person but not properly cited, or acknowledged) about 25% of text in the other article. Couzin-Frankel has also employed nested self-citation, which is the citation of a separate part of a paper such as a table or text box, to give the impression of a separate publication. These aspects call into question how strictly information is vetted and edited at AAAS’s Science. Despite alerting the AAAS, this heavily self-plagiarized paper has not been corrected or retracted. How then do the AAAS and COPE justify the continued publication of both texts?

The article reports on issues and topics discussed during the 1954 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) at the University of California in Berkeley. Of the 3,000 papers read and discussed in 300 sessions, most were concerned with the specialized maze of minutiae. Early in the AAAS meeting, Farrington Daniels of the University of Wisconsin chemistry department chairman, reviewed the factors depleting the world's reserves of fossil fuels, which had been produced through photosynthesis. He cited the growing population, industrialization, and growing demands for power and higher living standards as factors contributing to pressures for finding fossil fuel substitutes.

The article presents information on the use of models as a valuable adjunct to learning and participating in the scientific enterprise. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has proposed the concept of models at the elementary level, integrating steps in learning the scientific approach. According to the AAAS the activity of model formulation should help to give the student a real "feel" for the potentialities and satisfactions of the scientific approach. According to the educator R.D. Anderson, a "mental model" is a theoretical form or structure which is hypothesized on the basis of observations of natural phenomena. The Physical Science Study Committee has described models as ideas, pictures, systems of concepts which describe the things one investigate. The construction of a physical or mathematical models is the creative heart of all science. A paper "The Scientific Approach to Knowledge" by the AAAS states that the best way to achieve the generalization and retention of "process" skills is to continue to provide for a kind of "process" emphasis in instruction. Students should be instructed in the scientific approach to the generation of organized knowledge.

A conference paper that discusses the results of a research study conducted to determine the effects of short electric waves on microorganisms, particularly streptococci, often present in the roots of infected teeth is presented. The paper was read at a joint meeting of the American College of Dentists and the American Association for the Advancement of Science held in Boston, Massachusetts on December 29, 1933.

Bibliometric indicators increasingly affect careers, funding, and reputation of individuals, their institutions and journals themselves. In contrast to author self-citations, little is known about kinetics of journal self-citations. Here we hypothesized that they may show a generalizable pattern within particular research fields or across multiple fields. We thus analyzed self-cites to 60 journals from three research fields (multidisciplinary sciences, parasitology, and information science). We also hypothesized that the kinetics of journal self-citations and citations received from other journals of the same publisher may differ from foreign citations. We analyzed the journals published the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Nature Publishing Group, and Editura Academiei Române. We found that although the kinetics of journal self-cites is generally faster compared to foreign cites, it shows some field-specific characteristics. Particularly in information science journals, the initial increase in a share of journal self-citations during post-publication year 0 was completely absent. Self-promoting journal self-citations of top-tier journals have rather indirect but negligible direct effects on bibliometric indicators, affecting just the immediacy index and marginally increasing the impact factor itself as long as the affected journals are well established in their fields. In contrast, other forms of journal self-citations and citation stacking may severely affect the impact factor, or other citation-based indices. We identified here a network consisting of three Romanian physics journals Proceedings of the Romanian Academy, Series A, Romanian Journal of Physics, and Romanian Reports in Physics, which displayed low to moderate ratio of journal self-citations, but which multiplied recently their impact factors, and were mutually responsible for 55.9%, 64.7% and 63.3% of citations within the impact factor calculation window to the three journals, respectively. They did not receive nearly any network self-cites prior impact factor calculation window, and their network self-cites decreased sharply after the impact factor calculation window. Journal self-citations and citation stacking requires increased attention and elimination from citation indices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports about the congress of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The one hundred and thirty first congress was convened in Montreal, Quebec, from December 26 to 31, 1964. Papers were given at the Queen Elizabeth, Sheraton-Mt. Royal, Windsor, Laurentien, and Ritz Carlton hotels. Convention headquarters were at the Queen Elizabeth, which also held the AAAS Annual Exposition, which boasted a fine array of instruments and books, and the AAAS Science Theatre, in which a selection of the latest foreign and domestic scientific films were shown. On December 26, section K of the AAAS presented a symposium. On December 29 and 30, the symposium "Arctic and Subarctic Archeological and Ethnological Problems," was held. A highly stimulating program was offered by the symposium "Problems of Interdisciplinary Methodology in the Behavioral Sciences." The "Symposium on Ethnobotany of Some New World Cultures," offered papers dealing with various crops cultivated in different areas of North and South America.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's largest general science membership society, is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of advancing science, engineering and innovation for the benefit of all people, communicating science broadly, defending scientific freedom, providing a voice for science on societal issues, strengthening and diversifying the science and technology workforce, and advancing international cooperation in science. Founded in 1848, AAAS today has individual members from around 100 countries, and is the publisher of the Science family of journals, including the open-access journal Science Advances. NSR talks to Barbara Schaal—an evolutionary biologist at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, 2017 President of AAAS, former Vice President of the US National Academy of Sciences, and a former advisor of the President's Council of Advisors in Science and Technology under the Obama administration—and also to Bill Moran, the publisher of Science, about why science is a global public good, how basic science is the engine of economic growth and prosperity, the importance of social science, and why the need to defend the free flow of ideas and people across national boundaries is urgent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) held the 36th Annual Forum on Science and Technology Policy in May 2011. The forum addressed the federal research and development budget, science and technology (S&T) spending, and national innovation strategy. This paper reviews the highlights of the Forum and summarizes the budget outlook for fi scal year 2012. Given the current political and economic climate, signifi cant budget pressures can be expected. However, many of the conference speakers make a strong case for looking beyond the current crisis and sustaining government investment in S&T and innovation for long-term economic growth and continued US global leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a discussion of writing frames as a method of fostering scientific writing skills in the inquiry-based science classroom. Writing frames are described as templates that contain leads, cues, clues, and insights that collectively work together and provide a skeleton outline to scaffold writing tasks. The uses and benefits of writing frames for science instruction are discussed in light of the genres and dimensions of scientific writing, the American Association for the Advancement of Science goals, and the National Science Education Standards. A writing frame for an open inquiry activity is provided as a sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section offers news briefs related to science and technology libraries. The National Science Foundation, the Public Library of Science and the San Diego Supercomputing Center announced a new web site called SciVee. PhysMath Central, BioMed Central's open-access publishing platform announced the publication of its first research articles. Meanwhile, the American Association for the Advancement of Science announced that it would pull its flagship journal, "Science."

Abstract: Agent-based modelling provides a means for understanding both contemporary and future systems, and also the archaeological past. This article explores the appeal of agent-based modelling for understanding archaeological societies. Taken from the 2011 American Association for the Advancement of Science meetings, this paper and the following papers help advance our understanding of both real and modelled systems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article offers developments related to the activities of the organization the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS). Every year, the IRAS organizes seven-day conference to discuss issues which are relevant to scientific thinking as well as religion. Moreover, it also organizes different types of events during the yearly meetings of the organizations like the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the American Academy of Religion (AAR).

Ecological succession explored at the secondary and postsecondary level is often limited to terrestrial ecosystems. The emphasis is traditionally placed on how deforestation leads to ecological succession. However, aquatic ecological succession is just as important and allows for many connections to be made with other ecological concepts. Succession initiated by beavers (Castor canadensis) in particular links both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems over time. We present a guide to an inquiry-based lesson for AP Environmental Science and undergraduate ecology courses that explores the effects of aquatic and terrestrial ecological succession initiated by deforestation and beavers. Specifically, the focus is ecological succession and its effects in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. In this lesson, students (1) engage with a preassessment and broad overview of ecological succession, (2) explore authentic research data representing secondary succession in beaver ponds, (3) explain data using detective activities, (4) elaborate with a mystery pond, and (5) evaluate their new understanding by comparing a pre- and postassessment. This lesson plan meets the objectives for AP Environmental Science Biology courses as well as the core concepts and competencies for undergraduate biology education from the Vision and Change report by the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews several web sites including Antibiotic Resistance located at www.danmap.org from DANMAP, Organic Chemistry Online located at www.chemistry.msu.edu from Michigan State University Department of Chemistry, and Science Educational Resources located at www.sciencemag.org/site/extra/education/ from American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The article focuses on a speech by physicists John Archibald Wheeler at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 1979 disputing AAAS' decision to include parapsychologists in the association thereby dignifying parapsychology. He was said to be concerned over the paradoxes of quantum mechanics that connected observer and observed. It also refers to an essay he wrote, preceding this speech, where he criticized the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox in detail.

The article discusses the significance of science literacy maps in offering information about concepts and to help students construction their own understanding of the subject. The authors explain that the maps could help science teachers as they provide a broad look at content and process skills across the science curriculum. They cite the maps published in the "Atlas of Science Literacy" from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The resource offers information to let science teachers know what they should be teaching and students should be learning at different grade levels.

In its 2011 report Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education, the American Association for the Advancement of Science emphasized the use of core concepts and competencies from multiple disciplines rather than focusing on rote memorization. After the publication of this document, many individuals, departments, and institutions started using course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) as one way to transition to the inclusion of core competencies. Well-executed CUREs focus students' learning of science practices around a project that relates to a real problem the students are helping solve. However, while CUREs are effective and can be fun for both students and instructors, not every instructor or institution has the time or the funding to engage students in a formal CURE project. This means finding alternative ways to incorporate teaching core competencies and science practices. We created the Goggle Lab to use impairment goggles, which simulate the effects of alcohol and other substances, in a general biology laboratory setting to teach core competencies and science practices, while injecting a dose of fun and integrating social issues. Students utilized the impairment goggles to design experiments, analyze data, practice basic statistics, and communicate scientific findings in a variety of formats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information on the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting on Science, Engineering, Technology, Education: Toward a World Perspective that would be held from May 24-29, 1984 in New York. Some of the papers that would be presented during the conference are "Toward a More Informed Electorate," by Ellen V. Futter, "Phi Beta Kappa Lecture: Science and the New Objectivity," by Stephen Toulmin, "The Age of Imperceptibility: A Challenge for Engineers and Scientists," by Richard J. Gowen, "George Sarton Memorial Lecture: The Historian's Calling in the Age of Science," by Arnold Thackray, "The Population Factor in Africa's Development Dilemma," by Fred T. Sai, "Politics, Scientists, and Truth: Reflections on a Fissionable Relationship," by McGeorge Bundy, "Neutrons in Science and Technology," "Chemically Solvable Problems," and others.

The article reports on the contributions of scientists, engineers, and journalists that were recognized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) during an awards ceremony in Saint Louis, Missouri in February 2006. Norman R. Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp in Bethesda, Maryland, won the 2005 AAAS Philip Hauge Abelson Prize. Four scientists from the U.S. and three from Russia received the 2005 International Scientific Cooperation Award.