AIBS BioScience Editorials 3

An Agenda for Our Science?

Biologists of all stripes may be grateful for the powerful support the National Research Council, the operating arm of the National Academies, has recently given to a new interagency biological research program. In its study A New Biology for the 21st Century (www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12764), the council concludes that biology has reached an inflection point that could allow rapid progress in multiple biological fields. The program it envisages would involve better coordination and integration of research, as well as substantial new financial support.

The "New Biology," the report says, has the potential to deliver "remarkable and far-reaching" benefits addressing critical challenges—notably, food production, protection of the environment, renewable energy, and improvement of human health. Solutions in these areas are "within reach" and will emerge from the growing capacity to understand, predict, and influence the responses and capabilities of complex biological systems. As an example, the report describes prospects for combining accelerated "genetically informed" plant breeding with research on plant development, systematics, and ecology. Such an integrated approach could yield improved crops capable of feeding a growing human population in the face of a rising sea level and changing temperatures and rainfall patterns. Individualized, more effective health care is also highlighted as an achievable benefit. However, the enabling technologies are not yet at hand in either case.

The sense that biology has enormous potential will not be new to those working in the discipline, but the council's assessment goes further than previous surveys in its willingness to link the solutions to urgent problems with improved research support and dissemination of results across the spectrum of biology. The group is also clear about the obstacles: insufficient resources, poor public recognition of the capabilities now emerging, and institutional barriers. Value is being lost, it says, because government-supported research efforts are not well integrated. Presenting the report at a press conference in September, Keith Yamamoto, chair of the National Research Council's Board on Life Sciences, said that the peer-review mechanisms funding agencies currently employ may be too constraining.

A New Biology for the 21st Century, which was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Energy, also points to barriers in the academic world that prevent innovators from receiving professional credit for work spanning traditional science and engineering departments. Priority should be given to new information technologies that will facilitate the sharing of often-heterogeneous data, the report says. The report also urges the development of interdisciplinary curricula. (BioScience, as it always has, welcomes manuscript submissions resulting from interdisciplinary research.)

The 10-year interagency effort in New Biology that the council proposes would build on existing efforts throughout the government. Although the group declines to put a price tag on the proposal, comparisons it discusses indicate that the cost would be more than a billion dollars annually. The White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy has been briefed.

The report will remind practicing biologists, as well as those who make decisions about research funding, of their responsibilities and their power. There may be an opportunity to make concrete plans: The report advises that "the time to move forward is now."

Timothy M. Beardsley
Editor in Chief

BioScience 59: 819
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.10.1

Genes for the Planet

Two articles in this issue of BioScience illustrate the power of new molecular techniques to give wings to very different types of biology. Both articles discuss, in part, how information from genetic sequences might guide urgently needed planetary ecological management.

In the article that begins on page 745, Christopher W. Dick and W. John Kress describe how DNA diagnostic tools can be used to achieve insights into the dynamics of tropical forests. The extraordinary biological diversity of tropical forests has become recognized in recent decades as one of the wonders of the world. The importance of the gargantuan amounts of carbon stored in these forests has also become more widely appreciated. Yet detailed scientific characterization of tropical forests has yet to be accomplished, largely because of the paucity of specimens from remote areas and a shortage of systematists.

Dick and Kress make a strong case for the value of plastid DNA barcodes to further the characterization of tropical forest diversity, knowledge that is essential for conserving such biological riches in the face of mounting pressures. Protocols for plant DNA barcoding are not as advanced as they are for animal barcoding, and Dick and Kress acknowledge that barcodes alone cannot fully inform the understanding needed for conservation. Yet although barcodes can identify only species that have already been described and named, they can speed progress by quickly yielding information to guide subsequent, more detailed study. In this way barcodes do help elucidate the diversity and relatedness of species in different regions, as well as the evolutionary processes that gave rise to them. Such insights can highlight priorities for protection.

In the article that begins on page 757, Anastasia Saade and Chris Bowler describe very different molecular tools that also are revealing evolutionary histories—in this case, of diatoms. That history is fascinating, and although these common algae are quadrillions of times smaller than a tree in a tropical forest, their collective importance in the global carbon cycle is comparable to that of tropical forests. Staggering numbers of diatoms in oceans and freshwater contribute more than 20 percent of global primary production, equivalent to the contribution of all terrestrial rainforests.

The studies Saade and Bowler describe are also revealing the details of diatoms' highly unusual metabolism, and their ability to nanoengineer silica-containing structures in a way that far surpasses the best efforts of human engineers. These characteristics suggest that diatoms may be able to teach scientists some valuable tricks. In particular, their photosynthetic efficiency and high lipid content make them a promising source of fuel oil. Several companies are developing ways to exploit diatoms in this way. Diatom-derived oil is still too expensive to compete with conventional hydrocarbon fuels, but work in progress might lower the cost of the manufactured product. At the same time, growing world demand for mined oil seems likely to drive its price upward in coming years, recessions notwithstanding. Studies of diatoms, then, may well help relieve some of the development pressure on tropical forests and ease humans' reliance on fossil fuels.

Studying genes can be consequential indeed.

Timothy M. Beardsley
Editor in Chief

BioScience 59: 731
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.9.1

Spreading the Words

In the Forum article that begins on page 699, Stephen R. Carpenter and 18 distinguished coauthors argue for a national program focusing on synthesis in environmental sciences. This influential group, representing an array of specialties, argues that ecologists and scientists in closely connected disciplines—the biological, computational, atmospheric, hydrological, geological, oceanic, and social sciences—can, by working together better, accelerate discovery and research in basic and applied environmental science. The article urges spreading the culture of synthesis more extensively to undergraduate and postgraduate education and toward management and governance.

BioScience is a hybrid biology magazine and journal that publishes mainly synthetic overview articles, so it should be no surprise that we endorse this call. By and large, science has proffered professional recognition for meritorious research regardless of how well the work unifies prior studies. Although the importance of interdisciplinary research and synthesis has become more widely recognized over the past decade, much remains to be done. The Internet has made it easier to find scientific articles, but specialized journals proliferate, making it an ever-steeper climb to keep up with even one field. Synthesis enables more people to understand and build on key insights, enhancing the capability of the scientific enterprise to inform policy. At the risk of sounding Machiavellian, synthesis increases power.

There are several notable examples of successful synthesis efforts in biology: As well as the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis discussed by Carpenter and colleagues, the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center comes to mind (see the article by Kevin Winker on page 657 for an insightful discussion of one cutting edge of evolutionary biology). The Long Term Ecological Research program has fostered cross-site synthesis for almost 30 years, and influential university departments have carried forward the message that researchers should look beyond their narrow specialties.

Still, synthesis often seems risky, and young academics feel professional pressure to generate publications in high-impact journals, as François Brischoux and Timothée R. Cook lament in their Viewpoint on page 638. Publishing data in a hot field might be an easier way to add a high-impact article to one's résumé than building bridges to scientists who work and think differently.

Comparing and combining findings from separate fields is indeed challenging, as articles published in BioScience have documented. Researchers from disparate communities are likely to employ unique terminology, and they may even have different understandings of supposedly shared concepts. Yet the effort to break down disciplinary barriers is vital. As Carpenter and his coauthors observe, efforts such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which have led to products useful to policymakers, are limited more by a shortage of experts trained in synthesis than by knowledge from the contributing disciplines.

Last October, a survey of BioScience readers found that our emphasis on articles that synthesize biological insights and explain them to a broad spectrum of readers is appreciated. Whatever changes we might make, our mission of improving communication among biologists generally—and so increasing their influence—will persist. Authors occasionally chafe at our limits on the length of articles, and they may be taken aback by our distaste for jargon. But the effort of writing for nonspecialists is the price of allowing synthetic conclusions to be widely understood.

Timothy M. Beardsley
Editor in Chief

BioScience 59: 635
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.8.1

Malawi as Microcosm

One talk at the AIBS meeting in May on sustainable agriculture stood out both for its immediacy and for the challenge it represents to established wisdom. Pedro A. Sanchez, recipient of the 2002 World Food Prize and director of the Tropical Agriculture and the Rural Environment Program at Columbia University's Earth Institute, told rapt attendees about the latest results from an initiative that is being called the "Malawi miracle."

Malawi, a landlocked country of poor farmers, faced a food crisis in 2005, the result of drought, floods, and a disastrous maize harvest. Huge amounts of food aid, costing more than $100 million, barely averted widespread starvation. President Bingu wa Mutharika, whom Sanchez advises, decided to ignore the consensus advice of the World Bank, the US Agency for International Development, and others. Rather than rely on incentives to boost market efficiencies, he provided smallholders with subsidized inorganic fertilizer (two 50-kilogram bags per household) and a few kilograms of subsidized seeds. Most farmers opted for hybrid seed.

The increase in national maize production was immediate: the country's maize deficit of a half-million metric tons turned into a maize surplus a year later. By 2007, production had tripled, and Malawi broke its maize harvest record. Production fell back in 2008, when drought struck again, but still met national requirements, and estimates are that this year's maize crop will beat the 2007 record. The cost of the program is less than half the cost of food aid in 2005.

A dozen African countries are now looking to replicate Malawi's success. International donors have pledged $2 billion euros toward similar schemes, and the "Washington Consensus" on development, which discouraged subsidies, is fading. Even the World Bank has reversed course. In his talk, Sanchez encouraged comparisons with the "green revolution" that multiplied yields of wheat, rice, and maize in Asia and Mexico during the second half of the 20th century.

Yet the Malawi program is not without critics. Proponents of traditional and organic farming fear that providing farmers with inorganic fertilizer will encourage dependency. It could also leave them vulnerable to increases in the price of natural gas, which is consumed in large amounts to make the component chemicals. Inorganic fertilizer promotes emissions of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, and it can encourage soil erosion. What's more, crops grown from hybrid seeds, which are supplied by corporations, may be less resilient than traditional landraces to pests and changes in rainfall patterns. For such reasons, the proliferation of look-alike schemes in Africa is not universally hailed as progress.

Sanchez acknowledges some drawbacks and cautions that reliance on inorganic fertilizer should be seen as a stopgap measure. But organic farming, in his view, is not suited to the nutrient-depleted soils common in Africa. The Malawi solution could buy time for vulnerable populations while infrastructure for more sustainable agriculture is developed.

Malawi is a parable for global development. Its story emphasizes, above all, that while scientists and politicians should stay informed about the quantitative insights science can offer, they should also stay open-minded. One-size policies will never fit all.

Timothy M. Beardsley
Editor in Chief

BioScience 59: 539
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.7.1

Beyond the Envelope

Biologists are familiar with studies that estimate the range of temperatures that must prevail for a species to survive and then examine where those temperatures might be found under various scenarios for the future climate. The approach, which allows a rough estimate of how a species' geographic range might change with global warming, has provided important insights: the expected shifts in the ranges of many organisms, animals and plants, seem drastic. In many cases, ranges seem likely to be smaller in the future as biota move toward the poles and higher up mountains (where that option exists).

Bioclimatic envelope modeling can be more sophisticated than this simplistic account suggests; precipitation and other variables may be included, for example. But organismal biologists know that the actual determinants of where a species thrives can be dauntingly complex and, moreover, can change as genes migrate. Animals, which may modify their behavior and diets opportunistically, present more of a challenge in this respect than do plants. But plants, which may be genetically more labile, are complicated enough, and the interdependencies of the members of the kingdoms mean that bioclimatic envelope monitoring could never supply a final answer.

In the article that begins on p. 489, Eric Post and his colleagues describe some ways that researchers have started to refine bioclimatic envelope modeling as they seek insights into the factors that limit species' distributions. They focus on the use of time-series data to examine correlations between climatic and population variables. Although this approach demands large amounts of data, it can highlight subtle yet important effects. A key revelation is that local populations of a species often vary dramatically in their responses to climate measures. The anomalies can flag important influences—for example, interactions of local populations with other species may ameliorate or exacerbate responses to abiotic factors. Post and colleagues take care not to propose the approaches they describe as replacements for other modes of analysis, but the fascinating findings they relate from work with just a few species indicate promising potential to uncover significant phenomena.

The importance of better understanding and analysis of linkages between organisms and their environment is, coincidentally or not, the principal message of five "grand challenges in organismal biology" recently highlighted in a statement issued by the Executive Committee of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. The document, available at www.sicb.org, could become a useful starting point for researchers lobbying to increase funding for organismal biology. But an important task remains beyond the starting point: the powerful but abstract ideas in the five challenges need to be fleshed out with real-world examples of the ways in which, for example, organisms respond to environmental changes. These real-world examples will drive home the importance of organismal biology to society. If a price tag can be attached to these examples, politicians will be more likely to pay attention, knowing that inaction could be costly; they cannot be counted on to act on the basis of abstract ideas. Cost issues are far from straightforward (see, for example, the letter from Mark Sagoff on p. 461 and the accompanying response from Gary Luck and colleagues). Ignoring them, however, is not an option.

Timothy M. Beardsley
Editor in Chief

BioScience 59: 459
doi:10.1525/bio/2009.59.6.1

Forward Steps for Science

The century of biology is almost a tenth complete, and its first decade seems to have delivered more pain than progress. Yet in March, biologists of all stripes were relieved when two scientists with impeccable credentials and broad experience in energy and marine policy—John P. Holdren and Jane Lubchenco—were confirmed as director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Despite the national preoccupation with the country's economic woes, the Senate finally recognized the pettiness of further delay in approving these crucial appointments. Holdren and Lubchenco, together with Steven Chu, the previously sworn-in secretary of energy, should have excellent opportunities to effectively inform US policies in vital areas. The growing threats to ecosystems worldwide—climate change among them—will surely receive full weight in their decisions. Coming just a few days after President Obama had issued a memorandum directing the head of OSTP to guarantee scientific integrity throughout the executive branch, the confirmations reinforce the impression that science is being taken seriously by the new administration.

It is also encouraging that immediately after his confirmation, Holdren publicly praised the investments in innovation contained in the stimulus bill that Congress passed, including funding for research efforts in potentially large-payoff areas such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, renewable energy, and energy efficiency. Many big-picture thinkers hold that breakthroughs in these areas will be needed to mitigate the threats human population growth poses to health and world food supplies. Breakthroughs in biotechnology should also translate into progress against incapacitating and killing diseases, an outcome made more likely now that the president has removed Bush-era restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Few people oppose medical progress, but critics nonetheless criticized Obama's decision on stem cells for seeming to give scientists a green light to ignore ethical sensitivities. That worry is understandable but seems overblown. Federal research on the cells will go forward only after intense scrutiny and deliberation by governmental advisory bodies. And the president stated that some projects, such as human cloning for reproductive purposes, will remain off-limits. Doubtless others will too.

Yet human embryos are hardly the only living things deserving attention. How the planet can supply food for the burgeoning human population—and do it sustainably and securely—is a question that scientists around the world must seek to answer. To support that search for answers, AIBS has made "Sustainable Agriculture: Greening the Global Food Supply" the topic of its 2009 annual meeting, to be held 18–19 May in Arlington, Virginia; see p. 448 for more information, or visit www.aibs.org/annual-meeting/annual_meeting_2009.html.

The biggest problems facing the world cannot be solved by any one country. Nor can they be solved without science. That this White House supports sound science is promising, as are the appointments of scientists who can inform sound policymaking. But another hurdle must be cleared: the public also must understand the nature of science and its value to society to ensure that the best policies are put in place. All biologists can help advance such understanding.

Timothy M. Beardsley
Editor in Chief

BioScience 59: 363
doi:10.1525/bio/2009.59.5.1

The Individual Benefits of Evolution

The 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, widely and properly celebrated last 12 February, was a gratifying event for biologists. The founding father of modern biology was feted in articles, broadcasts, and gatherings, and evolution was even a pictorial motif on Google's home page. The public recognition was a notable plus for biology's image, especially as 12 February was also the 200th birthday of another great benefactor of human freedom, Abraham Lincoln.

Charles Darwin a benefactor of freedom? Yes. Even aside from the case argued by Adrian Desmond and James Moore in Darwin's Sacred Cause (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009)—that hatred of slavery inspired the great man to argue for a single human origin—understanding natural selection in itself opens paths to freedom. Consider the multiple ways in which the principle informs vital applied research in a host of disciplines, most notably today in agriculture and medicine. The dramatic effects of artificial selection practiced by humans were a clue that alerted Darwin to the broader principle of natural selection. Now that researchers understand that principle, they can manipulate it to more easily develop disease-resistant crops and to improve various types of drug therapy. Thus Darwin's legacy daily enhances freedom from hunger and disease.

But as important as these and other practical benefits may be, Darwin's insights can lead to another sort of liberation—from the sense of powerlessness to address the world's problems. Although Darwin showed unequivocally that humans are zoologically animals, he was also impressed by our species' exceptional qualities, including our "god-like intellect" and our benevolence to even the "humblest living creature." A modern understanding of human evolution makes clear that Homo sapiens' ability to manipulate its physical environment and the reasoning that supports that ability have granted us influence over the whole globe.

It is a breathtaking story: a process relying on random mutations for its raw material spurred the emergence of creatures who debate legal and ethical codes and care about their future. The evolutionary tale reveals us as constrained in crucial ways by our animal heritage, but also individually unique and uniquely able to envisage possibilities and make collaborative plans in a changing world. Good ideas, as well as advantageous genes, tend to spread. Teachers might find that these evolutionary insights, as well as the practical benefits stemming from natural selection, are an energizing counter to the misapprehensions of students who arrive in class believing that Darwinism promotes only immorality.

Persistent untruths about natural selection that blame Darwin's conception for social ills will have a baleful effect unless knowledgeable scientists promote a more accurate view. Yes, it is undeniable that social movements have in the past abused "survival of the fittest" to defend grave injustices, but that's all the more reason for biologists to help make amends. November will see the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species, another opportunity to put that volume on a pedestal. Biologists will be serving society well if they remember that Darwin's insight not only delivers practical benefits but also affirms humans' power to work together toward hopeful futures.

Timothy M. Beardsley
Editor in Chief

BioScience 59: 275
doi:10.1525/bio/2009.59.4.1

Stimulating Conservation

It may be cold comfort to struggling alternative-energy entrepreneurs, but it is now close to a done deal that investment in wind and solar energy will increase dramatically in coming years. Although many sectors are clamoring for federal financial assistance in these troubled economic times, the administration and Congress seem agreed that low-carbon energy sources need boosts. Not only will these energy alternatives reduce US dependence on foreign oil, but they also promise to provide new jobs. Moreover, pressure for a federal carbon tax, or some similar measure, is likely to be ultimately successful in Congress, which points to a rosy long-term competitive outlook.

For these reasons, planning for high-voltage transmission lines, wind farms, and solar power stations is moving ahead apace. Together with other components of the economic stimulus package—repairs to roads and to water and sewerage systems, in particular—they could bring about the most rapid and far-reaching changes in the US landscape in several decades.

Few environmental scientists are likely to oppose moves toward a smaller carbon footprint, but nobody should be naïve about the difficult trade-offs that these huge changes will entail. Wind farms make noise and kill a lot of birds and bats. Solar power facilities disrupt the natural environment over large areas. The high-voltage transmission lines that will be needed to transport power across the continent to the mostly coastal areas where demand is highest are unsightly and can be barriers to the movement of wildlife. Disputes over priorities and values in conservation can be expected to reemerge with a vengeance.

The plaintive story Christin Pruett and her coauthors tell in the article that begins on p. 257 exemplifies the kind of dilemma that planners will face. Numbers of the lesser prairie-chicken have declined drastically as the bird's habitat in the southern Great Plains has become fragmented by long lines of windmills. The wind energy boom in the plains, current economic difficulties notwithstanding, is bad news for this bird, which graces this month's cover.

Put bluntly, within a few years, the lesser prairie-chicken may live only in zoos because the windmills disrupt the necessary connectivity between dwindling populations. Pruett and her colleagues propose a series of measures that could stave off the species' extinction in the wild. But whether the necessary measures can be implemented in time must be open to doubt. Pruett and colleagues suggest, among other things, that the whirlwind pace of wind-energy development be slowed. But that course of action would also incur ecological costs.

Biologists are by now reasonably well equipped with concepts that might shed light on such decisions, and the article by Gary Luck and colleagues, which starts on p. 223, gives examples of how economic arguments on behalf of species and ecologically functional groups can be marshaled. Such efforts can make a crucial contribution that can support legal protections. How much of the needed research can be done within a pressing timetable is another matter. There would seem to be work opportunities aplenty for biologists willing to enter the disputed fields.

Timothy M. Beardsley
Editor in Chief

BioScience 59: 195
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.3.1

Boosting Biology

When I first studied—if that is the word—biology, in high school in the 1970s, it seemed uncompelling: the lab demonstrations could not compare for spectacle or danger with more vivid offerings in chemistry and physics. Only an encounter with The Ecologist magazine persuaded me that biology had gravity.

Today's biology teachers have at hand not only better demonstrations of biology's power but also more convincing arguments for its importance. As Thomas Lovejoy, biodiversity chair of the Heinz Center, remarked recently, humanity has finally come to the point where daunting rates of species loss and the challenges of sustainably meeting energy and food needs are "all one big crunch." Individuals' decisions are important, but national and international policies will govern how our species manages the pressures stemming from its burgeoning numbers. Nobody can doubt that biology, from molecules to the environment, must inform those policies if we are to avoid tragedies.

The tools available are stunning: petaflop computing, nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry, and high-energy coherent light sources were just a few highlights described recently during a one-day meeting convened by the National Academy of Sciences, which is conducting a study called "A New Biology for the 21st Century." These and other techniques allow researchers to disentangle life's webs of causation in real time and on molecular scales, bringing unprecedented opportunities and demonstrating the quantum-mechanical effects underlying key processes. At the opposite extreme, satellites have made many people familiar with maps showing processes such as primary productivity regionally and globally.

Popular excitement about science gels around the promise of advances in medicine, as did much of the academy's whistle-stop tour of biological triumphs. Such advances, however, will help only a small fraction of humanity unless larger-scale biological challenges see similar progress. James Collins, head of the National Science Foundation's BIO directorate, aptly sketched the imperative and the promise of comprehending the biosphere in order to manage it.

Indeed, biological approaches to carbon sequestration might offer some of the most plausible ways of taking action against global warming. Yet the challenges of inspiring tomorrow's biologists remain just that, and the notorious fragmentation of biology into enclaves that communicate with one another only with difficulty is widely recognized as an impediment. Somehow, students must learn that life does offer plenty of spectacle and danger, and that familiarity with key concepts and a readiness to learn new techniques can empower them.

The hard part is to convey essential ideas without snuffing out interest with a surfeit of facts and jargon. For students who want to become biologists, academic institutions need to do more to offer early career support for innovative research, another point made strongly at the Academy's show-and-tell day. Fortunately, educators are developing new approaches to teaching biology, and that topic is among those the Academy study will address. With an administration in office that is receptive to input from scientists, the Academy could provide crucial leadership.

TIMOTHY M. BEARDSLEY
Editor in Chief

BioScience 59: 99
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.2.1

Revving Up for the Year of Science

The year 2009 has been designated the Year of Science (www.yearofscience2009.org). The Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science (COPUS) and AIBS, together with the Geological Society of America, the National Science Teachers Association, and the University of California Museum of Paleontology (home of the new Understanding Science Web site; see p. 91)—are fully engaged in the effort to attain the goal of the Year of Science: to empower Americans "to appreciate the pragmatic outcomes of science, to distinguish science from non-science, and to participate in social discourse that provides insight into the nature of science" (COPUS, www.copusproject.org/rationale.php).

The celebration is timed to coincide with many seminal scientific anniversaries, most notably the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, who by introducing the concepts of natural selection and evolution by common descent laid the foundation for essentially all of modern biology. Year of Science activities will span the full range of science and technology and involve a remarkable collaboration of 450 professional scientific societies, universities, science teachers' associations, government laboratories, community groups, museums, and businesses.

Let me point out, however, that 2009 is cause for celebration for other reasons. It is, for example, the 800th anniversary of the founding of Cambridge University, the 250th anniversary of the birth of Scottish poet Robert Burns, and the 50th anniversaries of Hawaiian statehood and the Chevy El Camino. I mention these dates not to encourage a 12-month frenzy of parties, but rather to point out that public understanding of science begins with public awareness of science, and 2009 is not atypical in providing a great deal of competition for the attention of the American public. For many people, the anniversary of the Chevy El Camino will seem more relevant than any of the year's scientific anniversaries.

It is the burden of the scientific community to attract notice above the din. Scientific information has never been more readily accessible: Web sites, podcasts, blogs, cable shows, and YouTube videos complement the more traditional sources of information, such as radio, magazines, and books. Unfortunately, scientific information competes, on a dismayingly level playing field, not only with more approachable nonscience enterprises but also with misinformation and pseudoscience, which are not always immediately recognizable as such.

So here is our challenge: a single Year of Science will not transform the American public, but if the effort in 2009 boosts public awareness of science, it can be a launching point for a long-term initiative to alert, inform, and educate the public about the value of scientific understanding in everyone's life. Thus, the year 2010—incidentally, the 125th anniversary of the invention of the Daimler-Maybach automobile internal combustion engine—and the years that follow should all be years for the public understanding of science, as well as for science's understanding of its public role. AIBS and COPUS will continue to be a part of the efforts to keep the conversation going.

May R. Berenbaum
President, AIBS

BioScience 59: 3
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.1.1

New Year, New Administration, New Opportunities

The economy took a nose-dive in the fall of 2008, with all indicators showing a free fall: inflation at nearly 6 percent—its highest level in 17 years—unemployment at 6 percent, no net job growth in the private sector for most of 2008, plummeting housing prices, and record losses in the banking industry. Public investments in technology, a major component of which is the Internet, have reaped huge benefits for the economy in the past. Remember, however, that it is science that supports the technology we need to keep America great in the 21st century.

Within a few short years, an estimated seven billion people will populate the planet, and all of them will need food, shelter, and water. Natural resources are dwindling, and the challenges of achieving energy security, assuring good quality of life in old age, securing safe water to drink, finding workable responses to climate change, and protecting public health will loom large. None of these challenges can be met without developing and employing new technologies.

Again, remember: science fuels technology through creative inspiration and innovation. Strengthening the science enterprise in the United States will ensure this country's continued leadership in the global community. But this cannot happen unless integrity is restored to US science policy, significant investments are made in fundamental research, a national commitment is made to science education—from K–12 to our research universities—and the public's understanding and appreciation of the nature of science and its contributions to the quality of life are fully realized. Academic research depends on the support of the government and the general public alike, in coordination with government policies that stimulate the creation of new companies, ensure healthy markets, and mitigate risks and barriers.

A US intelligence report for the next president, previewed in a speech by analyst Thomas Fingar, predicts that US dominance will diminish as the world is reshaped by globalization, battered by climate change, and destabilized by regional upheavals over shortages of food, water, and energy (www.dni.gov/speeches/20080904_speech.pdf). Another report issued by the National Academies (National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine), Science and Technology for America's Progress: Ensuring the Best Presidential Appointments in the New Administration (www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12481#toc), indicates that "the nation is in need of exceptionally able scientists, engineers, and health professionals to serve in executive positions in the federal government." Approximately 80 high-level science and technology appointees will be critical to advising the new president on issues from energy to health care to economic growth.

The message and action plans for America are clear: fund basic research well and appoint outstanding talent to critical posts in government to guide and nurture science, engineering, and technology. Scientific disciplines and associations must break through their traditional walls and work together to help meet this challenge. The American Institute of Biological Sciences stands ready to join forces with other like-minded parties in this crucial effort. The needs are clear and the mantra of the forces we are struggling against is all too familiar. Let us see that the message is heard and needed actions are taken.

Rita R. Colwell
President, AIBS

BioScience 58: 1103
doi:10.1641/B581101