On April 14, the National Science Board released a draft report called “Building a Sustainable Energy Future,” offering advice on how the United States can transition to renewable and clean sources of energy. Dan Arvizu, the cochairman of the board’s task force on sustainable energy and director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., recently talked with staff writer Laura Sanders about U.S. energy policy. Only about 7 percent of the nation’s energy comes from renewable sources. How urgent is it that we increase that? We really need to be moving very quickly... (p. 32)

I was tickled when Rick Fienberg, then editor of Sky & Telescope magazine, stood up at a special session at the August 2006 meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Prague, grabbed the microphone and proclaimed that every person on Earth should look at the night sky through a telescope in 2009, as Galileo did 400 years earlier. Audacious? Yes! Appropriate? Absolutely! Practical? Well ... of course not! But Rick’s enthusiasm soon caught on, and it made good sense. Better sense, I thought, than the mess astronomers got themselves into over the “demotion” of Pluto a few days l... (p. 36)

Physics professor Charles Niederriter of Gustavus Adolphus College directs the Nobel Conference, an annual forum where scientists and the public discuss a contemporary scientific topic. Held every year at Gustavus Adolphus, in Saint Peter, Minn., this year’s Nobel Conference, October 6–7, will examine the current state of water resources. Staff writer Laura Sanders recently talked with Niederriter about the conference and why scientists need to speak clearly to the public. How did the Nobel Conference begin? In the early 1960s … the president of the college approached the Nobel F... (p. 32)

In February, Alice Huang became president-elect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The renowned virologist began her career at Harvard in 1971, eventually becoming director of the laboratories of infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital Boston. After a stint at New York University, she moved to the California Institute of Technology in 1997 when her husband, Nobel laureate David Baltimore, became its president. She is now a senior faculty associate in biology at Caltech. In March, Huang spoke with senior editor Janet Raloff about the need to make science accessible... (p. 32)

Weather and climate extremes have been affecting people around the world, from recent droughts in China and Australia to strong storms in Asia to a cold wave in large parts of Europe and the United States — all within a month of the World Meteorological Organization reporting 2008 would likely rank among the 10 warmest years on record. The cold wave sparked significant discussion, and the year 2008 ended up slightly colder than the previous year, partially because of the La Niña phenomenon. How could we speak of global warming in the middle of a cold wave in parts of the world? If 2008 was ... (p. 32)

Treaty on antiquities hinders access for museums James Cuno, a past president of the Association of Art Museum Directors, has spent years investigating implications of a United Nations treaty: the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. It prohibits museums and other research centers from acquiring objects unearthed after 1970 without permission from the country of origin. Such permission is seldom granted, Cuno notes in his new book, Who Owns Antiquity? Last month, senior editor Janet Raloff spoke about... (p. 32)

Rush Holt, a plasma physicist by training, represents New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District in the U.S. Congress. From 1989 to 1998, Holt was assistant director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, a research institute focused on fusion as an alternate energy source. Holt was elected to the House of Representatives in 1998. Recently, staff writer Laura Sanders talked with him about the state of science and science funding in the United States. In his inaugural address, President Obama said we would “restore science to its rightful place.” Where is science now? Science, I th... (p. 32)

Over the past few months, many graduate students and postdocs have been receiving letters from department chairs apologetically explaining that the faculty job search at Institution X has been canceled. State and private universities are facing declining tax revenues and falling endowments, and are unwilling to raise tuition on newly impoverished families. From Harvard to small local colleges, junior faculty searches are being put on hold as the nation suffers its worst economic downturn in most of our lifetimes. Even if the economy were to recover over the next one to two years, the acade... (p. 32)

For three decades, Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University has been monitoring the health of glaciers atop mountains from Peru to China . Skeptics initially doubted that he could retrieve meaningful data from these remote elevations. But he has, while also discovering that these millennia-old data-storage lockers are rapidly disappearing. Senior Editor Janet Raloff recently spoke with Thompson about what science is losing.   When did you first learn high-elevation glaciers were dying? When we started our monitoring program in 1978, people typically described the movement of ice fields... (p. 32)

Charles Darwin is not around today to explain his views to critics who decry evolution on religious grounds. But among his voluminous writings and correspondence are occasional passages that indicate how he might have answered if questions on such matters were posed to him today. Science News Editor in Chief Tom Siegfried composed the following questions about Darwin’s religious beliefs and views; the answers are all in Darwin’s own words, drawn largely from Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of his Published Letters (1902), edited by his... (p. 36)