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| The latest news from the Academies
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Nov. 23 -- Top researchers gathered at the seventh annual National Academies Keck Futures Initiative conference to explore the engineering, scientific, and social impact of synthetic biology. To encourage research, the Academies announced the availability of $1 million in seed grants that will be awarded on a competitive basis to conference participants.
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Nov. 23 -- The winners of the 2009 National Academies Communication Awards were honored during this year's Keck Futures Initiative conference in Irvine, Calif. The winners are Neil Shubin for his book Your Inner Fish; Mark Johnson for his reporting on reprogramming human cells in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; Larry Adelman, Llewellyn M. Smith, and Christine Herbes-Sommers for their documentary Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?; and Vikki Valentine, Alison Richards, and Anne Gudenkauf for NPR News' Climate Connections Web site.
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Nov. 18 -- A new report from the National Research Council presents nine research challenges and four research initiatives that are poised to advance the study of how Earth's landscapes change. These research paths could help resolve environmental issues, from coastal erosion to landslides, by helping predict how processes such as wind, ice, water, tectonics, and ecosystems drive changes in the Earth's surface.
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Nov. 9 -- The fifth annual conference of the African Science Academy Development Initiative took place this week in Accra, Ghana. The three-day event focused on how expert advice from science academies and others can guide policies aimed at reducing maternal, newborn, and child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. The opening ceremony began with video messages by science and policy leaders from around the world, congratulating the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences on its 50th anniversary, and emphasizing the importance of evidence-based advice in the policymaking process.
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| Breaking stories in science
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Nov. 23 -- President Obama today announced a new nationwide effort to create public-private partnerships to improve science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education and encourage more students to pursue careers in these fields. The campaign, called Educate to Innovate, will focus on mobilizing resources to help already-successful programs reach more young people and on using media such as video games and television to aid learning in math and science, among other goals.
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Nov. 19 -- Last week, for the first time in four years, a competitor in NASA’s "space elevator" challenge qualified for one of the contest's cash prizes. Part of NASA’s Centennial Challenges program, the contest challenges participants to transmit power from a remote transmittor to a device that climbs a cable suspended one kilometer high.
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Nov. 9 -- A new report from the national science academies of seven African countries estimates that the lives of nearly 4 million women, newborns, and children in sub-Saharan Africa could be saved every year if already well-established, affordable health interventions reached 90 percent of families. The report was released at the annual conference of the African Science Academy Development Initiative in Accra, Ghana.
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Nov. 4 -- Former NAS President Bruce Alberts, former NIH Director and IOM member Elias Zerhouni, and Nobel prize-winning chemist and NAS member Ahmed Zewail have been appointed by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to serve as science envoys to Muslim majority countries. The envoys will travel to North Africa, the Middle East, and South and Southeast Asia "to fulfill President Obama’s mandate to foster scientific and technological collaboration," Clinton said, speaking at a forum in Morocco.
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Nov. 3 -- Earlier last week Bill and Melinda Gates launched a new project through their foundation in order to emphasize the importance of government contributions to global health. The couple highlighted the previous success of U.S. government initiatives in combating malaria, reducing child mortality rates through immunization, and preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS. These successes underscore how critical maintaining global health care funding is, despite the recent economic downturn.
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| Featured Books |
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| Site Highlights
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An Ocean Infrastructure Strategy for U.S. Ocean Research in 2030, attend open sessions of the meeting Dec. 1.
When the Mountains Come to You
, attend the Dec. 2 lecture in Irvine, CA.
Independent Scientific Review of Everglades Restoration Progress , attend open sessions of the meeting Dec. 3 in Jacksonville, FL.
Forum on the Future of Nursing: Community Health, Public Health, Primary Care, and Long-Term Care, attend the Dec. 3 forum in Philadelphia, PA.
Radio host Bob Edwards to moderate discussion following film screening of WhizKids at NAS Dec. 9. Register to attend.
Full-text of over 5,000 NAP reports dating from 1863 to 1987 are now publicly-accessible and searchable through Google Book Search or the National Academies Research Center collections database, Acadalog.
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| This Week in PNAS
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| Events |
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View upcoming public meetings and other events listed by date.
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