Cornell well represented at annual AAAS meeting in Seattle

Thomas Gold, professor emeritus of astronomy, talked about the probability of life on Mars and other planetary bodies at the AAAS meeting. Robert Barker/University Photography

By Larry Bernard

The 1997 Annual Meeting and Science Innovation Exposition of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) was held Feb. 13 through 18 in Seattle. It featured research and presentations by 5,000 scientists from around the world -- including several from Cornell faculty and staff members -- on a wide range of topics.

AAAS is the world's largest federation of scientific societies, with more than 140,000 members and 300 affiliated societies. About 600 reporters, editors and broadcasters from around the world converged to cover the meeting and talks during the past week.

Also included at the meeting was a federal research and development budget overview from John Gibbons, President Clinton's science adviser, who described the president's fiscal year 1998 research and development budget, which calls for funding to increase by $1.6 billion to a total of $75 billion.

"The president's FY '98 budget strengthens university-based research," Gibbons said. The administration is proposing to increase university-based research by $289 million from FY '97 to a total of $13.3 billion in FY '98.

The following stories are about talks given by some Cornell participants at the AAAS meeting:

• Gold describes why life on Mars probably existed and may still exist

• Genetically based social rules now create dysfunction, biologist warns

• 'Food systems' approach to agriculture would produce healthier diets

• Popular children's toy involves complicated mathematical calculations

• For help with geographically big science questions, call on the smallest scientists, ornithologist advises

• WWW 'BirdSource' will capture and dispense citizen-science data online