PHILADELPHIA -- The 150th Annual Meeting and Science Innovation Exposition of the American Association for the Advancement of Science was held Feb. 12 through 17 and featured research and presentations by 5,000 scientists from around the world. Among them were several from the Cornell faculty speaking on a wide range of topics.
AAAS is the world's largest federation of scientific societies, with 143,000 members and 300 affiliated societies. More than 500 reporters, editors and broadcasters from around the world covered the meeting and talks during the week.
A highlight of the meeting came Friday, when President Clinton addressed a packed and enthusiastic gathering. In his 25-minute speech the president presented his vision of an increasingly brighter future. "The world is so often portrayed in the future as a terribly frightening, primitive, brutal place," he said. "I think it's important that we all accept the responsibility to imagine and invent a very different kind of future."
Clinton announced that his science adviser of five years, Jack Gibbons, had decided to resign. The president said he would nominate as his replacement Neal F. Lane, director of the National Science Foundation. To succeed Lane, Clinton said he would nominate Rita Colwell, president of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, who was nominated as deputy director of the NSF in January.
During the annual meeting, Theodore L. Hullar, director of the Cornell Center for the Environment, was named a fellow of the AAAS. The biochemist was cited for "outstanding contributions to science as researcher, teacher, administrator, national leader, policy-maker and architect of a major national research grants program in agricultural and environmental sciences."
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