U.S. intelligence agencies are encouraging American research universities to develop protocols for monitoring students and visiting scholars from Chinese state-affiliated research institutions, as U.S. suspicion toward China spreads to academia. From a report: Since last year, FBI officials have visited at least 10 members of the Association of American Universities, a group of 62 research universities, with an unclassified list of…
Tag: outreach
IAU invites countries to name exoplanets
Nearly 100 countries have already signed up to organize national campaigns, to provide the public with an opportunity to vote. The deadline is July 30 to express interest in organizing a national campaign. The IAU will announce results in December. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/iau-invites-countries-to-name-exoplanets…
The building blocks for astronomically literate citizens
What does it mean for a citizen to be literate in astronomy? Astronomers who participate in outreach to the general public experience various degrees of astronomical knowledge among people. But so far, there had not been a systematic evaluation and definition of what astronomical literacy actually means. Astronomers including Pedro Russo from the Leiden Observatory therefore published the first global document…