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This is a screenshot of the NASA press release today about astrobiology. It clearly depicts the direction [Science] outreach should go. There was a time where only journalists would go to press releases, where only they could ask questions. They were the interface between NASA and you. That time is gone. They are still needed and part of the equation, but you can also have access to the whole process, from planning to evaluation, including the ability to participate in the event. ...

-Background and authorship info- Part of the Mirzayan fellowship was to propose topics on which to write a policy paper. This is the topic I submitted and 10 other fellows joined. This is the result of 2 weeks of work. Some of the authors requested their authorship to remain internal to NAS. Therefore, I am not including names besides mine. Also you will note many similarities with my individual brief, in which I concentrated into the subtopic of Crowdsourcing development. ...

Name: That´s not really important, but it can be “predictive behaviour logics” or “Guess Action Algorithm” Concept: A big-ish widget on the screen of your smart phone (or computer, but I´ll think on mobiles for now) that shows what you most likely want to do, based on your patterns of use and other information like location, time, weather, agenda, emails, ... Need: Think about it. Phones today can do millions of things. But when you take your phone, you are only interested in one, and many times is highly predictable, based on time and location. Most of these actions are not addressed by the notifications the phone already has, and we all end up with too many shortcuts in too many home screen. -When you commute everyday on the metro, if you get your phone, you most likely want to open the News, the Kindle app, or the Angry Birds. ...

Ante la cada vez m��s abundante proliferaci��n de conferencias, cursos, seminarios y todo tipo de actividades que diferentes corrientes pseudocient��ficas est��n desarrollando dentro del marco de las universidades espa��olas y latinoamericanas, tendencia que cristaliza en la reciente creaci��n de una C��tedra de Investigaci��n sobre Homeopat��a en la Universidad de Zaragoza, los abajo firmantes (cient��ficos, profesores, alumnos y ciudadanos en general) nos vemos en la necesidad de manifestar lo siguiente: ...

With the burgeoning use of Internet and mobile phone technology, user-generated content (UGC) has emerged as an innovative means of sharing data. In the last decade, subscriptions to mobile phones rose from 18% to 97% in the developed world, and from 1% to 45% in the developing world. Internet subscriptions increased 10-fold in the last 10 years, reaching now 20% of the world population. Facebook—launched in 2004— now has over 500 million users (half of users, ~5% of the world’s population, access Facebook every day). Twitter has grown to 100 million users worldwide since beginning in 2006. In 2010, Twitter hit 50 million tweets per day—an average of 600 tweets per second. UGC has shown promising advances in a broad variety of fields (e.g., epidemiological surveillance, crisis response, and e-governance, among many others). ...

The National Academies Press publishes more than 200 books a year on a wide range of topics in science, engineering, and health. I am cursed with endless curiosity, so working there is a love-hate relationship. Love because I love what the NAS does, hate because everyday I find I report “I have” to read. Halfway in my fellowship, I decided to highlight some of the ones I find most interesting. For now, this is the one: ...

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPn0Za8J06w] Last Saturday I attended the Global Crisis Camp Day, on its Washington DC chapter. This event is part of the CrisisCommons effort to reach out and establish an enduring network of volunteers and contacts for future crises. "CrisisCamp is a global network of hybrid barcamp/hackathon events which bring together people and communities who innovate crisis response and global development through technology tools, expertise and problem solving. Since 2009, CrisisCamp volunteers have created crisis response and learning events in over 10 countries with volunteers of all backgrounds who collaborate in an open environment to aggregate crisis data, develop prototype tools and train people on how to use technology tools and problem solving to aid in crisis response and global development." I had previously volunteered for the Crisis Camp Haiti and Crisis Camp Chile. I helped them, and I loved it. I learnt from Ushahidi and OSM directly from them as they also attended those camps. I proudly mapped a small region of Haiti after the disaster. (Soon afterwards also La Corrada, my hometown.) My already growing interest in crowd-sourcing and GIS leaped forward a great deal thanks to them. I believe with them I crossed the point of no return. It was the last push that led me to leave research and come here, to The Academies. As a matter of fact, the S&T policy paper I am writing for my Mirzayan Fellowship is about the policy implications and needs to allow these technologies to play an important role in development. ...

Harvey A. Averch, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985. 216 p. I found this lost treasure buried at a second hand bookstore. It dates back some few decades, and the USA was certainly different in 1985, when this book was published. Back then, the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam war, the energy crisis, high unemployment, and very high inflation and escalating interest rates, made any political planning difficult. There was even a raised fundamental concern over the future of American prosperity. ...

Excerpt in English: Last outreach talk in Gijón was a special success. Being a talk at the community center at the city where I was raised, it was particularly an honor. I got much interest and advertisement from the local and regional radio, tv and newspaper. The room was full and people made questions for more than an hour after the end of the talk. Thank you. You make it worth. Un par de reflexiones a propósito de esta última charla: ...

Excerpt in English: I will be giving an outreach talk at the community center in La Arena, in Gijón (Spain) on Friday 6th of August, at 7:30 pm. The topic of the talk will be an overview of the current understanding of Solar physics, the Sun-Earth relation and the place of the Sun in our Universe. Attendance is free. El próximo Viernes 6 de Agosto, a las 7:30pm, doy una charla sobre el Sol en el "Centro cívico de La Arena". La charla está abierta a todo el público y no tiene coste. Durante una hora intentaré dar una idea del conocimiento actual del Sol, de su relación con la Tierra, y de su posición con el resto del Universo. La charla cuenta con la colaboración de la Asociación Asturiana de Astronomía Omega (organización), NASA Goddard (material divulgativo) y el centro cívico de La Arena (local y medios informáticos). "el Sol, y su relación con el resto del Universo" El Sol. Esa bola brillante que vemos casi todos los días en el cielo. Nos levantamos por la mañana con su luz y nos acompaña durante todo el día. Los afortunados la observan estos días acostados en la Playa de San Lorenzo. Estamos tan acostumbrados a verlo nos parece algo cotidiano, común. Pero piensen, ¿Qué saben de esa bola brillante? ¿Qué es? ¿Por qué brilla? ¿Cómo de lejos está? ¿Es grande? ¿Cuánto durará? Es entonces cuando nos damos cuenta que en realidad es un gran desconocido. De hecho, el Sol es, en muchos sentidos, la puerta al Universo que, inapreciablemente para mucha gente, está ahí fuera. En esta charla divulgativa hablaremos sobre cuál es el conocimiento moderno del Sol, y cual su relación con el Universo. ...