Highlights:

 This Week in PNAS 
Highlights from the recent edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the Academy's scientific journal

  Video Presentations from the 2009 Annual Meeting Available Online
View presentations of the symposium Darwin Would Be Amazed: Recent Developments in Evolutionary Biology and research briefings by NAS members elected in 2008

  NAS InterViews Podcasts
Listen to audio interviews in which members talk about their research, why they became scientists, and other aspects of their research and careers.  

News:

  Winners of Communication Awards Honored
November 23, 2009: 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.

  Research Challenges to Understanding Landscape Changes Identified
November 18, 2009: A new report 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.‬

  African Science Academies Gather in Ghana
November 9, 2009: The fifth annual conference of the African Science Academy Development Initiative is under way in Accra, Ghana. The three-day event will focus 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.

  NAS, IOM Members to Serve as Science Envoys
November 4, 2009: 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.‪

  NASA’s Pilot Safety Survey Yields Unreliable Data
October 28, 2009: Data from NASA's National Aviation Operations Monitoring Service (NAOMS) project, a survey administered to pilots in order to track safety-related incidents during air travel, should not be used to measure rates or trends in safety in the National Airspace System, says a new report. Deficiencies in several aspects of the survey design make the data gathered unreliable.

  Improvements Needed to Ensure Interoperable State Voter Registration Databases
October 21, 2009: Several actions are needed to help make voter registration databases capable of sharing information within state agencies and across state lines, says a new report. These include short-term changes to improve education, dissemination of information, and administrative processes, and long-term changes to make improvements in data collection and entry, matching procedures, and ensure privacy and security.

>> More News