Framing Science: A New Paradigm in Public Engagement

Science and Public Engagement in National Parks: Examples and Advice from Young Scientists

NAS: speaking the truth to power for 150 years

Working Together to Address Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

Rethinking the Ph.D. dissertation in botany: Widening the circle.

Are We Serious about Addressing Health Disparities through Research?

NationalResearch Council (NRC). 1 That issue also contains an article by ASCB member William Wood (pp.123-127) about a recent NRC report on advanced study programs for high-school students (with a focus on the Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs in biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics), as well as a review of the report (NRC, 2002).In a future issue of CBE, NRC program officer Kerry Brenner will describe a major report from the Academies, BIO2010: Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists.Here, I discuss three other education activities across the National Academies that are likely to be of interest to biologists.The National Academies publishes some 250 technical and popular reports each year on topics related to virtually all aspects of science and public policy. 2It convenes more than 500 committees annually with the aid of more than 6000 committee members.The NRC is comprised of autonomous disciplinary boards and study committees that are overseen by larger divisions.As with other types of institutions, collaboration is sometimes constrained by financial and other barriers.However, under Alberts's leadership, the National Academies is making a concerted effort to foster greater coordination and collaboration among its education initiatives, with the Center for Education serving as the nucleus of education knowledge that can be shared with other program units in the disciplines.For example, while the NRC's Board on Life Sciences assumed primary responsibility for producing

CBE is pleased to launch a new feature called Points of View (POV).POVs address issues faced by many people within the life sciences education realm.We will present two or more opposing POVs back-to-back on a particular topic to promote

Coronavirus Disease 2019 and Vaccination of Children and Adolescents: Prospects and Challenges

The Committee to Assess the Health Implications of Perchlorate Ingestion [National Academy of Sciences (NAS)] released its final report [National Research Council (NRC) 2005] in January 2005, recommending a reference dose (RfD) for perchlorate of 0.0007 mg/kg-day. In a commentary published online on 25 May 2005, Ginsberg and Rice (2005) criticized the adequacy of the NAS committee’s scientific deliberations, mischaracterizing the studies reviewed by the committee and second-guessing its conclusions. Ginsberg and Rice (2005) implied that the U.S. Environmental Protections Agency’s (EPA’s) previous draft RfD of 0.00003 mg/kg-day (U. S. EPA 2002)—and by inference the Massachusetts perchlorate risk assessment [Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (Mass DEP) 2004] that mirrored the U.S. EPA’s approach and which Ginsberg and Rice peer reviewed—is more scientifically defensible. The NAS committee was composed of 15 leading physicians and scientists with combined range of expertise to evaluate every scientific aspect of the perchlorate database and of the U.S. EPA’s assessment of that database. The makeup of this committee and its credentials are available on the NAS website (NAS 2004). The NAS committee studied and deliberated for more than 15 months before issuing its report. Those deliberations included three public meetings during which it accepted verbal and/or written comments from the U.S. EPA, other government agencies, industry, states, environmental groups, and attorneys. After careful study and consideration of the scientific studies that formed the basis for the U.S. EPA’s 2002 draft RfD as well as the 2004 Massachusetts risk assessment (Mass DEP 2004), the NAS committee considered several of the animal studies … to be flawed in their design and execution. Conclusions based on those studies, particularly the neurodevelopmental studies, were not supported by the results of the studies. Although Ginsberg and Rice (2005) implied that the NAS committee should have considered the threshold for measurable iodine uptake inhibition “adverse” and that the NAS inadvertently left out the “A” in NOAEL (no observed adverse effect level), the committee decisively stated that “inhibition of iodide uptake by the thyroid clearly is not an adverse effect.” The committee carefully considered the issue of a NOEL (no observed effect level) and a NOAEL. Based on a clinical study of patients receiving perchlorate long term, the NAS established the NOAEL as 0.4 mg/kg-day (57 times higher than its identified NOEL). Ginsberg and Rice (2005) further expressed concerns regarding perchlorate in breast milk and the subsequent possibility of decreased breast milk iodine, citing Kirk et al. (2005) and Gibbs (2004). Kirk et al. (2005) reported perchlorate and iodide levels in breast milk samples and noted that “if we take all the available data, there is no meaningful correlation between the perchlorate and iodide levels in breast milk.” The study from Chile that Ginsberg and Rice refer to as Gibbs (2004) is now published as Tellez et al. (2005). The study found that iodine nutrition of pregnant women in Chile is very similar to that in the United States. Tellez et al. (2005) found no maternal or neonatal perchlorate-related thyroid effects or decreases in breast milk iodine with perchlorate doses spanning the 0.0007–0.007 mg/kg-day range. Ginsberg and Rice (2005) argued that perchlorate database deficiencies require an additional uncertainty factor of 3–10 because of key data gaps, citing breast milk concerns and the extrapolation from a 14-day exposure study to chronic exposure. The NAS committee (NRC 2005) considered this and concluded that if inhibition of iodide uptake by the thyroid is duration-dependent, the effect should decrease rather than increase with time, because compensation would increase the activity of the sodium-iodide symporter and therefore increase iodide transport into the thyroid. Evidence has subsequently shown this to be the case (Braverman et al. 2005). The California EPA perchlorate risk assessment (California EPA 2004) relied on the same studies as the NRC report (NRC 2005). The “point of departure” was based on iodine uptake inhibition by Greer et al. (2002), and a total uncertainty factor of 10 was applied to account for interindividual variability. After reviewing the NRC report (NRC 2005), the California EPA elected not to change its risk assessment or public health goal (California EPA 2005). In summary, the concerns presented by Ginsberg and Rice (2005) have already been addressed thoroughly by experts on perchlorate and thyroid toxicology and were found to be unsubstantiated. The NAS committee and other experts came to this conclusion based on a comprehensive review of the science in the field, not based entirely on an individual study, which has been mischaracterized by Ginsberg and Rice.

For many years, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS)1 has been at the forefront in responding to challenges to the teaching of evolution, working with other national and state organizations with similar objectives (summarized in Alberts and Labov, 2004 ; Labov, 2005 ). The NAS has established a website2 that makes freely available its three current publications on evolution education (NAS, 1998 , 1999 , 2004 ; National Research Council, 1996 ). Other publications about evolution (e.g., Hazen, 2005 ; Ayala, 2007 ), a variety of position papers, and links to evolution resources from other organizations comprise the balance of the site. One of these publications, Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, 2nd ed. (NAS, 1999 ), has been widely used by people in many communities and especially by legal scholars and practitioners. It has been a prominent resource for major court cases, including Selman v. Cobb County Board of Education and Kitzmiller v. Dover Board of Education. The first edition (NAS, 1984 ) was originally prepared as an amicus brief for the United States Supreme Court.3 These booklets were important because they provided courts, educators, policy makers, and the public with a clear synopsis of the kinds of evidence that support both the fact and the theory of evolution, and they offered succinct explanations of the processes and nature of science (Ayala, 2008 ). The second edition of Science and Creationism was released just before the ascent of the intelligent design creationism movement as a prominent voice in the “controversies” about evolution, and this publication devotes only two paragraphs to that challenge. Thus, the leaders of the NAS decided that an update to this booklet that addresses these more recent challenges was both timely and necessary. The new edition has been renamed Science, Evolution, and Creationism (SE&C) (Figure 1). Given the increasing importance of an understanding of evolution for prevention and treatment of disease, this new booklet has been developed jointly by the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine (IOM).4 As with the two earlier editions, SE&C (NAS and IOM, 2008 ) was authored by a committee of prominent scientists, many of whom are members of the NAS or IOM. And, this committee includes two teacher leaders, both of whom have served as president of the National Association of Biology Teachers. Figure 1. Cover of Science, Evolution, and Creationism. However, unlike its predecessors, this new edition was shaped to a large extent by a careful program of audience research. This research was initiated to bring about a better understanding of the frame of reference that the intended audiences bring to this issue. The committee decided early in the revision process that its goal was to successfully inform opinion leaders and influentials who could then use this information to help reframe5 discussions about the evolution “controversy.” By presenting authoritative scientific information in ways that address the questions and concerns of those who are unsure about teaching evolution in science classrooms, the authoring committee would provide opinion leaders and influentials (scientists, business leaders, clergy, teachers, members of school boards, policy makers, judges, lawyers, and others) with the tools needed to change the understanding and decisions of other people who comprise the “wobbly middle.” They defined the wobbly middle as the large percentage of citizens that various national polls have shown to be undecided about whether or not evolution, creationism, or some combination should be taught in public school science classrooms.

The article is devoted to the study of the legal regime of property (property complexes) of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and national branch academies of sciences.The conclusion about the need to bring the Law of Ukraine „On the peculiarities of the legal regime of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, sectoral national academies of science and the status of their property complex” into line with the laws of Ukraine „On management of state-owned objects” and „On scientific and scientific-technical activity” in particular, in terms of the unification of legal norms defining the powers of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and national branch academies of sciences for the management of objects of property complexes relevant academies.It is proposed to define in the Law of Ukraine „On the peculiarities of the legal regime of activity of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, branch national academies of sciences and the status of their property complex” the content of the right of economic management and the right of operational management of property of these academies and their scientific organizations as well as to fix the concepts of the right to conduct business and operational management rights, revealing their contents, in the updated Civil Code of Ukraine.

Shifting Perceptions of CRISPR

The Wicked Problem of Physician Well-Being.

We have investigated the temperature dependence of the electron effective mass in Mn/sub x/Hg/sub 1/minus/x/Se crystals (0 < /times/ /le/ 0.1) in the T = 90-300 K temperature range. We have determined that the temperature-dependent changes in the band gas (/var epsilon//sub g/), in the band diagram nonparabolicity, and in the conduction band carrier concentration have a strong effect on the temperature dependence of the carrier effective mass at the Fermi level m/sub /xi///star/ = f(T).

Institutional imperatives for the advancement of women in medicine and science through the COVID-19 pandemic