The nation’s leading scientific organizations vowed to build on the momentum generated by the March for Science by continuing to reach out to the public and policymakers at all levels to promote sound scientific policies that advance discovery and benefit society, according to a joint statement issued on April 24.

Examples of “fake news,” such as a report that Pope Francis had endorsed Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, are the equivalent of a bad cold in the body politic, says Dan Kahan, a professor of law and psychology at Yale University. But much more troubling, he told a session of the 2017 AAAS Annual Meeting, are the “toxic memes” Trump has mastered that represent what he called “a cancer” on enlightened democracy.

In the wake of the presidential election, AAAS CEO Rush Holt acknowledged the concerns of young scientists and engineers in an op-ed calling on them to “Speak up, keep calm and carry on.”