Note: Professor Holly Stocking's J554 Science Writing class traveled to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Francisco last month. Students covered and reporting on presentations as well as wrote their reflections on the experience. Below is one student's essay.

Tom Fecarotta, graduate student at the School of Journalism

The science extravaganza officially began outside of Hotel Adante, where we were gearing up to eat dinner after a long day of traveling. As we waited in the unseasonably warm sea air outside the hotel lobby, we were surprised by a man on a verbal mission. He made a slew of wild statements. One, though, ended up glued in my head: “Did you know our souls move with cell phones?”

Little did I know that remark would be make a connection to a AAAS symposium on Internet Searching in 2017. Our souls may not move with our cell phones as the man proclaimed (at least not the souls of those privileged with wireless Internet phones), but as panelists confirmed, the dissemination of information over the Internet in the next 10 years will change dramatically.

An Internet search will become less like a traditional library search and more like a conversation, in which you state your intentions in the form of a question and get a useful answer. Panelists from the symposium, including Peter Norvig from Google, called the possible changes “motivational queries,” a way to explain our Internet searches as more of a question-and-answer exchange using our personal computers. Or, as he put it, our intentions answered without additional searches. It will be like “Ask Jeeves” of the contemporary Google, though much improved.

In short, our lives in 10 years could rely on this revamped Internet, and the last time I checked, cell phones with Internet, like Yahoo! Mobile, are slowly putting our e-mails and search engines — our “souls” if you will — in the palms of our hands. So the homeless man may not have been too far off.

The symposium was my favorite of those I attended. But I also listened to a three-hour session on the severe problem of drug abuse, including that of the ever-popular methamphetamine, and its consequences to the brain. Experts in neuroscience shared their graphical analysis of the effects of specific drugs on the brain, including the harsh effect methamphetamine has on the prefrontal cortex of the brain.

Afterwards, I chatted with Stephen Dewey of Brookhaven National Laboratory on various topics, including the rise of GVG treatments, a calming drug now being tested on meth users.

The most memorable evening was Friday night, a dinner cruise on the bay for the press. I met other science writing students from Johns Hopkins University and Michigan State. It was helpful to speak with students from other schools, especially those who, like me, are still new to the intricacies of science writing and the responsibilities that come with it.


See the list of other student essays.

Read the main story, "Students attend, cover science conference."