The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has announced that attendees of its 90th Annual Pacific Division Meeting, scheduled for August 17, 2009, in San Francisco, will get to learn about the latest efforts in science communication from some of the leading experts in the field. The symposium is called ‘Good Science is Only Part of the Job: Communicating Science to the Public’.

As science has become a larger part of the cultural landscape, researchers have frequently found themselves navigating the difficult waters of policies and politics. It has become increasingly necessary for scientists to work with the media to assure accurate portrayals of science issues so there can be better understanding by the public and therefore better decisions by policy makers. Each of the presentations will address how scientists can be better equipped to manage different media when sharing research and information with the public.

Hank Campbell, founder of ScientificBlogging.com, an independent online science community, will chair the symposium and present ‘Why Communicating Science Is Important.’ Greg Critser, science and health book author, long time science and medical journalist, will discuss how to use journalistic methods to transform research into compelling media discourse – from newspapers and magazines to the Internet and the blogo-sphere, in ‘Interacting with science journalists.’

Prof. Michael Eisen, Department of Molecular Biology, University of California, Berkeley, will discuss efforts to reinvent scientific communication. Dr. Eugenie Scott, Executive Director for the National Center for Science Education, will discuss how science is a product of human beings, which means it is affected by human institutions including politics. Dr. Michael White, Department of Genetics and Center for Genome Sciences, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, will discuss science communication misfires and how science bloggers deflated the hype over the Ida fossil, exposed a stealth creationist paper in a peer-reviewed journal, and have relentlessly pummeled dubious claims about vaccines, stem cells, climate change, and personalised medicine, in ‘Blazing Your Own Trail: Writing Directly to the Public.’"