Children are our world’s explorers, inventors, and adventurers. They spend years discovering the world through play. While solo play is well known to foster social independence, recent studies have been looking into the cognitive effects of joint play. The results of several such studies were presented on February 18 during the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting
Event coverage
Coverage begins in 2006 for the ScienceWriters meeting and 2009 for the AAAS meeting. To see programs for past ScienceWriters meetings, go to the ScienceWriters meeting site.
New models accelerate human brain research while sparking debate
My father battled Parkinson’s disease for 15 years, with each passing year feeling like an eternity. During that time, my family and I witnessed his gradual decline from a witty independent man into a person who required constant care. We watched helplessly as the disease robbed my dad of his body, mind, and spirit. With no cure in sight, he felt demoralized and often expressed suicidal thoughts.
Getting funny with facts: how can humor help communicate science?
A statistics professor, a computational biologist, and two professional science communication researchers walked into a bar — or, rather, connected over Zoom at the 2022 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting to explore evidence that humor empowers science communication.
Historical records reveal major space weather events
What would you do if the power went out? Our lives are increasingly reliant on technology; our work and our social lives often require access to the internet. Lights, televisions, and refrigerators require electricity to run. These devices, and the power grid as a whole, are subject to a major threat society is not totally prepared for: the Sun’s bad behavior.
Sign language spotlights the brain’s ability to adapt
The human brain is wired to communicate. Three projects have exposed new details about the impacts of signing on the brain.
Student coverage of the AAAS 2022 Annual Meeting
NASW's Education Committee paired students with professional science writers for a mentorship program held in conjunction with the virtual AAAS 2022 Annual Meeting.
Psychedelic therapies such as psilocybin and MDMA may one day help people recover from severe depression, trauma, and substance abuse, but scientists are struggling to access them for studies due to strict regulations.
Energy grid resilience: Making decisions under uncertainty
Severe winter storms slammed into Texas a year ago, causing the worst energy infrastructure failure in state history. During a Feb. 20 virtual panel at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting, three experts weighed in on what grid resilience means, how we improve resiliency, and how we enact these changes in an equitable way.
Cyborg jellyfish: The future of deep ocean exploration?
The dark depths of our ocean remain largely unexplored, making it one of the most mysterious and poorly understood regions on Earth. An aeronautical engineer at the California Institute of Technology thinks he’s discovered the perfect way to take the plunge – cyborg jellyfish.