August 11 - The U.S. Department of Energy announced yesterday that National Academy of Sciences President Ralph J. Cicerone will serve as a member of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, representing the NAS. Also joining Cicerone are five members of the National Academy of Engineering:

July 14 - A new rule announced by the government this week makes it easier for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder to receive disability benefits. This change could affect hundreds of thousands of veterans who served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam.

July 8 - Two articles published in the journal PLoS Medicine  last month assess current trends in maternal, newborn, and child health in sub-Sarahan Africa, while presenting a tool for prioritizing investments in proven health-care interventions. The papers are based on the report “Science In Action: Saving the Lives of Africa’s Mothers, Newborns, and Children,” which was developed under the African Science Academy Development Initiative and presented at last year’s annual conference in Accra, Ghana.

June 3 - Five members of the National Academy of Sciences, two of whom are also members of the Institute of Medicine, were among eight scientists awarded the prestigious Kavli Prize today. NAS members Jerry Nelson, University of California, Santa Cruz, and Roger Angel, University of Arizona, Tucson, were among the winners of the astrophysics prize. NAS member Richard Scheller, Genentech, shared the neuroscience prize with Thomas Südhof, Stanford University School of Medicine, and James Rothman, Yale University, both NAS and IOM members.

May 14 - The U.S. Senate this week confirmed Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander to lead the new U.S. Cyber Command, which the Defense Department created in response to increasing threats to its computer networks. The command is charged with giving early warning about cyber threats to the U.S. military and responding to them.