Obama’s website also has information about the President-Elect’s proposed agenda of topics to tackle upon entering the presidency. Among them, Technology, Education and Energy & Environment, all areas that concern the science community. The entire list of agenda topics can be found at the bottom of each page of the website.

Still, this is likely to change in the coming weeks, as more nominations may come out as the holidays approach. And as the U.N. Conference on Climate Change comes to a close at the end of this week, the roles of science advisors in the U.S. become even more important. With the expiration of the Kyoto Protocols, the U.S. government will want a strong infrastructure of scientific experience to rely on, one that will cooperate well with their international counterparts to improve upon and develop new climate and environmental protocols.

Physics Today’s Campaign Blog has more information on current developments with science and politics, and more information on Obama’s Cabinet nominations can be found on NPR’s website.

The Congressional Fellows spend a year working as scientific experts on Capitol Hill, and are given a unique chance to influence federal policy making. It is, however, only for scientists with a Ph.D. in a technical field (so no aspiring science writers, unfortunately), or with equivalent research experience.

The expansion of the Congressional Fellowship comes at a fascinating time. With the new president waiting to be sworn in next month, and the scientific community more involved and interested in the nation’s politics than they have been in years, the more awareness about scientific policy making that can be raised, the better.

For information on the AIP Congressional Fellowship, along with information about other science and politics Fellowships, please visit AIP’s Government Science FellowshipsWebpage. Links to other Fellowship sponsors can be found there as well.

The designated areas will not only be used to build pipelines for transportation, but will also become corridors to transmit electricity and create space for distribution facilities in the future. More information on the energy transportation corridors and on the impact report, please visit the Department of Energy website.

In a message for the global warming summit in California, Obama killed two birds with one stone by addressing the members of the U.N. who will convene in Poznan, Poland for a meeting on climate change from December first through the twelfth.

More information can be found on Physics Today’s Campaign Blog.

Suggestions (subtle hints, really) are being sent to the President-Elect, advising him to think carefully – but quickly – about who he wants to retain as a science advisor. At the same time, the Department of Energy is trying to find ways to fund its nuclear fusion energy program, part of which is ITER, and international cooperative working to develop safe, efficient fusion reactors, using the same kind of energy process that powers our sun and other stars.

Visit their website for more information on ITER, and to keep up with any science policy news, check with Physics Today’s Politics and Policy blog and FYI, AIP’s Science Policy Bulletin.

Many of our national laboratories have suffered during the past few years because of budget cuts. Some have even had to cancel less vital programs, like internships for undergraduate students. 

One of these federally funded organizations is the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO). In the audio recording below, I spoke with some of the staff from the observatory to find out just what it is that they do, and whether or not they have felt the affect of these federal budget cuts as well.

For more information, visit the Alaska Volcano Observatory website. To learn more about the Boeing 747 flight malfunction from December 1989, visit the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center’s Webpage for the Redoubt Aircraft Ash encounter, or visit AVO’s Redoubt Activity page for information on the 1989-90 eruptions.

Many thanks to Jessica Larsen, Rick Wessels and Tom Murray for their cooperation and assistance in the making of this podcast.

Songs in order of appearance:

A Witch and a Whip – Yuki Kajiura

The Dreamers – Yuki Kajiura

Vesuvius – Josh Woodward

Chairman Jeff Bingaman outlined the committee’s “to-do list” for the coming year in a speech before the elections began. He stressed the need for bipartisan cooperation, with focuses on dramatic changes in the transportation industry, the establishment of an energy infrastructure, and increased energy efficiency in industry and residential areas.

For excerpts of his speech, visit FYI: The AIP Bulletin of Science Policy. And for more information on Bingaman and his view on energy policies, visit his website’s Focus on Energy page to view some of his previous actions regarding energy policy in the U.S. and specifically in his home state of New Mexico.

In a recent letter to President-Elect Barack Obama, headed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Association of American Universities, numerous scientific groups stressed the need for the new administration to act quickly to appoint a science and technology advisor before Obama becomes president in January. The full text of the letter can be found here, along with the link to the list of groups and scientists that signed the letter.

Keep our soldiers in your thoughts, for these last few hours of Veteran’s Day.

While the big election is over with, many of the smaller state election votes are still being counted. For information on federal House and Senate elections, Yahoo!’s Political Dashboard is a valuable resource. And while local and state elections aren’t being followed from one central point, entering “(name of state) state elections” should bring you to local coverage of any election you wish to check on.

Happy Election Day! Kudos to everyone who came out to vote!