Policy Aspects Of Science Dominate 1994 AAAS Meeting

About 5,000 scientists are expected to attend the 1994 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, to be held in San Francisco February 18-23. * John Gibbons, Assistant to the President of the United States for Science and Technology, and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy: "Science, Technology, and the Clinton Administration." * "Health Care Reform and Advances in Medicine": Sessions will focus on the discovery of AIDS therapies in an era of health care reform, ethical issues in the testing of preventive HIV vaccines, and information technology supporting research, health care, and the AIDS-affected community. * "Industry, Policy, and the Changing Infrastructure of Science" One session, "Building a U.S. Technology Policy," will target the efforts of the Clinton administration to develop a set of policies linking technology development, technology utilization, and U.S. economic competitiveness. * "Science, Ethics, and the Law": Sessions will include "Scientists and Human Rights: Activists, Victims, and Advocates," with presentations by former dissident scientists Yuri Orlov of the former Soviet Union and Fang Lizhi of China. "Science and a Changing World" is the theme of the 1994 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), to be held February 18-23 in San Francisco. The choice of theme extends a trend established in recent years of focusing prominent symposia on the social and political contexts in which scientists work. Career development meetings are also scheduled, and ongoing efforts to reform science education will be reviewed. Sessions discussing advances in traditional science areas will be offered, including seminars on mapping and modeling the brain, evolution and extinction, and the extracellular regulation of cell behavior. About 5,000 scientists are expected to attend 130 sessions with nearly 800 speakers at the San Francisco Hilton and Towers at this year's AAAS meeting, the 160th such gathering. "We came to the theme--science in a changing world--because of the readjustments that we as a nation are going through now," says Eloise E. Clark, program chairwoman for the meeting and vice president for academic affairs at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Among these readjustments, she says, are national policy changes in science support and financial problems confronting the universities, which represent much of the foundational support for science. As a reflection of the meeting's emphasis on science policy, Clark says, the keynote address will be given by John Gibbons, presidential science adviser and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Gibbons's address is entitled "Science, Technology, and the Clinton Administration." Also, Rep. George E. Brown, Jr. (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, may speak at the meeting, according to Clark. Chang-Lin Tien, cochairman of the program committee and chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, concurs that changes in society, domestically and internationally, will affect the way science operates. "With the new administration and post-Cold War adjustments," Tien says, "I hope this meeting will have a good exchange of information, providing a basis for decisions in the coming decade." Post-Cold War changes in the world will be addressed specifically in a symposium called "Regional and International Security and Defense Conversion." Several speakers will discuss the conversion of nuclear arms laboratories to other purposes, in the former Soviet Union as well as in the U.S. Symposia topics that will address social questions include "Health Care Reform and Advances in Medicine," "Industry, Policy, and the Changing Infrastructure of Science," and "Science, Ethics, and the Law." Health care is, perhaps, one of the strongest examples of an area in which social policy and science are likely to interact dynamically, both Clark and Tien agree. Clinton administration officials are focusing on cost-cutting and restructuring in health care, including a stronger emphasis on preventive measures. Several sessions at the AAAS meeting will discuss these and related issues. One session of the "Health Care Reform and Advances in Medicine" symposium, for example, is entitled "Increasing the Healthy Life Span: Advances in Health and Aging," and will include a talk on health-status assessment and preventive interventions. One seminar, "Eating and Health," will include a session on nutrition and disease prevention. Nobel Prize-winning geneticist Harold Varmus, now director of the National Institutes of Health, will participate in the meeting. His presentation will be part of the seminar "Half the Secret of Life Is Outside the Cell," a full-day session cosponsored by the American Society for Cell Biology and aimed at undergraduate life sciences majors and graduate students. The seminar will focus on understanding how extracellular cues regulate cell behavior, with emphasis on development, the nervous system, and cancer. An employment exchange, through which those seeking or offering research work can register, will also be offered. Individuals who are AAAS members may register for free, while nonmembers will be asked to pay a $10 fee. On-site interviews will be conducted. In addition, a career development seminar called "Changing Scientific Careers" organized by Catherine Didion, executive director of the Association for Women in Science, will include a session exploring alternative careers that may be open to those with science degrees and research training. Potential new career tracks will be the focus of several talks, including "Scientists as Consultants," "Environmental Law," and "Science, Women, and Technical Trades." Science journalism as a job option also will be discussed. One symposium, "Communicating Science," includes a likely- to-be-jammed session called "The Science of Star Trek: Bringing Science to a Different Public." The aim is to look into how science is treated in science fiction, using the popular television show as a example. The session will also suggest ways that the show might be used as an informal science learning tool.

Policy Aspects Of Science Dominate 1994 AAAS Meeting

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