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It's a darn shame, in my opinion, that the AAAS doesn't put videos of these symposiums on the web, along the lines of TED lectures and the like.  If they did that, I feel that many of the presentations would deserve (and get) tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of views. I've made this suggestion to several people within AAAS, but since the cultural conservatism of American intellectuals is perhaps rivaled only by that of the Saudi religious authorities, I suspect that a few decades will pass before any such thing happens.

Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the U.S. Geological Survey’s Twitter Earthquake Detector (@USGSTed) is a prototype that gathers real-time Twitter updates during seismic activities faster than scientific equipment can be tapped for more precise measurements and alerts. It examines earthquakes at an anecdotal level, and complements scientific analysis, according to the project’s overseer, Paul Earle.

At the most basic level, social media is about community building. Government agencies have adopted this mindset to varying degrees as a way to foster trust and dialogue with people. “It is truly a national town hall that has never been attempted during a disaster,” said Commander James Hoeft of the U.S. Navy, who oversees the cleanup effort’s social media team.