Panelists and audience members exchanged perspectives from both research and experience about different audiences, messaging tactics, and cultural change The Communicating Science Seminar at the 2018 AAAS Annual Meeting offered the audience of approximately 500 scientists, science communicators, evaluators, and students a chance to hear from and ask questions of speakers with diverse backgrounds and expertise in practicing, researching, and facilitating public engagement. The day included three panels, the first on expanding and diversifying the types of audiences that scientists and others engage with, the second on using narrative as a tool for conveying scientific information, and the third on increasing support for public engagement within scientific institutions and cultures.

The broad spectrum of lying and the scientific disciplines involved in understanding what drives such behaviors was topic of AAAS lecture.

Using exquisitely precise methods to measure how memories are embedded in brain cells in mice, scientists have shown how fear-based memories prompted by the sound associated with an electric shock can be activated and erased.

Electrical brain activity measured in bearded dragons suggests these patterns evolved in the common ancestor of mammals, birds, and reptiles.

Many neuroscience data sets have far more information than any laboratory can fully analyze, and researchers must do more to ensure their data are accessible to others, experts said at AAAS.

Probing environmental reports on the size of the Gulf oil spill, the possible risks of chemicals commonly found in drinking water, and the fate of an endangered fish in the Colorado River are among the winners of the 2010 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards.