News and Issues

Announced at the Science Faire: A $150-million philanthropic effort to empower a diverse cadre of promising early-career scientists to stay on track to become scientific leaders of tomorrow; The $90-million Let Everyone Dream campaign to expand STEM opportunities to under-represented youth; A $25-million Department of Education competition to create science- and literacy-themed media that inspires students to explore 120 universities and colleges committing to train 20,000 engineers to tackle the “Grand Challenges” of the 21st century; A coaltion of CEOs called Change the Equation committing to expand effective STEM programs to an additional 1.5 million students this year more »

The artist's ambitious mirror sculptures, known as 'geometric families,' which she produced in the last decade since reinstating her studio in Tehran, are on view. Indigenous art forms such as Turkoman jewelry and clothing, coffee house paintings (a popular form of Iranian narrative paintings), and the technique of reverse-glass painting influenced her work. more »

Julia Sneden writes: Surely, I thought, people have observed and learned a lesson from the large urban areas in the northeast and far west — but no, our small cities have replicated the poor planning and nutty zoning that have allowed the destruction of roadside beauty all over the country. We're right up there with the big guys. The roads that lead into our towns and cities are lined with fast-food joints and factories and car dealerships and shopping centers, so that reaching the center of town seems to take forever. more »

Astronomers have expanded the search for extraterrestrial intelligence into a new realm with detectors tuned to infrared light. Their new instrument has just begun to scour the sky for messages from other worlds. The idea dates back decades, Wright pointed out. Charles Townes, the late UC Berkeley scientist whose contributions to the development of lasers led to a Nobel Prize, suggested the idea in a paper published in 1961. more »