“How Science Writing Saved My Life,” was one of the highlights of the ScienceWriters 2011 opening session, which followed the high-energy format of an Ignite event. In rapid succession, ten presenters had exactly five minutes each to speak on a topic of their choice. Each presenter used twenty slides, which were set to auto-advance every 15 seconds.

Current precautions to safeguard scientists and consumers from dangerous pathogens used in bioweapons research may be too restrictive, discouraging some researchers from staying in the field, federal officials said on Feb. 20 at the 2011 AAAS meeting in Washington, D.C.

Speaking with a mouthful of pebbles didn’t cure the stutter of King George VI in real life or in the recent historical drama “The King’s Speech.” And today, scientists are still trying to develop effective therapies for stuttering, the focus of a session on Feb. 20 at the 2011 AAAS meeting in Washington, D.C.

In modern hospitals, doctors rely on ever more sophisticated technologies to perform quick and accurate diagnostics. But chemist George M. Whitesides thinks we're headed the wrong way with high-tech medical devices. For global medicine, cheaper is better, Whitesides claimed on Feb. 20 at the 2011 AAAS meeting in Washington D.C.