Coverage of scientific meetings has always been one of the pillars of Science News’ journalism. From the early days, our reporters showed up in person to get stories that no one else had. In the 1920s, Jane Stafford regularly reported from medical meetings, covering topics from the common cold to cancer. In 1981, Julie Miller, life sciences reporter at the time, attended a meeting where medical researchers were discussing the first cases of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS. She came back knowing she had to write about it (SN: 11/14/81, p. 309). And Ivars Peterson, who covered physical sciences, math and technology, was introduced to a Web browser at a physics meeting in the 1990s.
The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted a lot of our face time with scientists. Virtual gatherings were no doubt necessary to keep people safe, but they just weren’t the same. “Going to meetings gives you a main line to the science,” says staff writer Meghan Rosen, who recently attended a meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics in Washington, D.C. “You get to immerse yourself in different subjects in a way that’s completely different from reading a paper.”