Last week, thousands of scientists gathered in Washington D.C. for the 2011 American Association for the Advancement of Science conference. While most science conferences are field-specific—a geology conference here, a bio-medicine symposium there—AAAS is the big, fully-loaded enchilada, featuring speakers and panels that cover just about every facet of science that you can imagine. It lasts for six days. The unabridged program is as thick as a phone book. The two times I've been to AAAS, in 2009 and 2010, I've found myself so wrapped up in rushing from one amazing presentation to the next that I would go through an 8-hour day before I remembered to stop and eat.
I wasn't able to make it to AAAS 2011, but lots of other science journalists were there, and I've been reading their work. Today, I'm going to post about some of the most fascinating stories to come out of this year's conference—A few highlights, and another post with links galore.
Want more sciency goodness? A great place to start is Science Magazine. This website is connected to the AAAS organization, who are also the publishers of the peer-reviewed journal Science. They've got all sorts of podcasts, videos, and stories from AAAS 2011, which should give you a good idea of the breadth of topics the conference covers.
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