Are you on a first-name basis with Siri, Cortana, or your Google Assistant? If so, you’re both using AI and helping researchers like us make it better. Until recently, few people believed the field of artificial intelligence (AI) existed outside of science fiction. Today, AI-based technology pervades our work and personal lives, and companies large and small are pouring money into new AI research labs. The present success of AI did not, however, come out of nowhere. The applications we are seeing now are the direct outcome of 50 years of steady academic, government, and industry research. We are private industry leaders in AI research and development, and we want to discuss how AI has moved from the lab to the everyday world, whether the field has finally escaped its past boom and bust cycles, and what we can expect from AI in the coming years. Ask us anything! Yann LeCun, Facebook AI Research, New York, NY Eric Horvitz, Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA Peter Norvig, Google Inc., Mountain View, CA

As transportation emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have decreased due to stricter controls on air pollution, the relative importance of chemical products such as pesticides, coatings, printing inks, adhesives, cleaning agents, and personal care products has increased correspondingly. In a recent study we published in Science Magazine, we show that these volatile chemical products now contribute fully one half of emitted VOCs from petrochemical sources in Los Angeles. We hope these results will spur additional research and inform decisions about mitigating sources of ground-level ozone, fine particulate pollution, and air toxics. If you want to know more about how paints, pesticides, and perfumes contribute to pollution - ask us anything! Dr. Brian McDonald is an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder who works at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and whose expertise is on air quality models and emission inventories Dr. Chris Cappa is a professor at the University of California, Davis in the Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, whose work centers on the sources, fate and impacts of small particles in the atmosphere Dr. Jessica Gilman is a Research Chemist at NOAA and specializes in the measurement and chemistry of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the atmosphere. Dr. Joost de Gouw is a senior research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. His expertise is in the sources and transformations of organic compounds in the atmosphere.

Discoveries of planets outside our solar system have burst from a trickle to a flood in recent years, transforming our understanding of the Universe. NASA’s Kepler exoplanet-hunting spacecraft and other missions have shown that the Milky Way Galaxy is teeming with at least tens of billions of planets. These exoplanets come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from smaller than Earth to larger than Jupiter, and include a small number of Earth-size planets in the “habitable zones” of their stars. Telescopes like the Hubble Space Telescope are carefully examining the atmospheric compositions of many of these alien worlds. However, the goals of imaging an Earth-size planet around another star and comprehensively understanding surface properties and atmospheric characteristics remain elusive. The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope in 2018 will help move comparative planetology forward, while astronomers are continuing to design and develop the next generation of observatories. As scientists deeply involved in this research, we welcome your questions about the current state of knowledge about the diversity of exoplanetary systems, and the challenges of direct imaging and atmospheric characterization in particular. We’re especially interested in telescope concepts under development to directly image exoplanets and search for water, ozone, oxygen, and other potential markers of habitability, and envision where these may take our understanding of exoplanets in the next decade. Ask us anything! Debra Fischer, Professor of Astronomy at Yale University. Jessie Christiansen, Astronomer at the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena CA. Aki Roberge, Research Astrophysicist & Study Scientist for the LUVOIR space telescope concept, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD Jennifer Wiseman, Hubble Space Telescope Senior Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Dr. Patricia Boyd Chief, Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory & Director Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Guest Investigator Program, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Hi Reddit! We’re the editors for Science Advances, an open access journal that accepts longer research articles (up to 6,000 words). Since our launch in February of 2015, we’ve published more than 1,500 papers and have a number of articles with tens (and even hundreds) of thousands of downloads, and hundreds of citations. As we mature as a publication, we continue our interest in areas of great scientific breakthroughs and innovation on both broad and disciplinary-specific levels. The journal is broadly organized in the areas of life and biological sciences, earth and environmental sciences, and physical and materials sciences. This month our publications range from water on the moon to the diverse interests of people who participated in the Women’s March to the internal GPS of seabirds. Feel free to ask us about what makes for a good research article, what topics we’re interested in, what questions we find most intriguing, and anything about open access. We’re also happy to chat about what makes us different and unique as an open access journal of AAAS, and what the editorial process here is like. We have editors Kip and Warren here to answer your questions as well as the managing editor Philippa Benson. What do you want to know about publishing and open access? We’ll be back at 2 pm ET to answer your questions, Ask us anything!

Vector-borne diseases – infectious diseases that are carried between humans or from animals to humans by organisms such as mosquitoes and ticks – infect over 1 billion people and cause more than 1 million deaths every year (World Health Organization, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs387/en/). What makes someone susceptible to vector-borne disease? What do globalization, climate change, and human behavior have to do with where these diseases are found? What vaccines are in development? We’re a diverse group of infectious disease researchers – ask us anything! Maria Elena Bottazzi, Associate Dean, National School of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine. I lead the research, education and administration efforts of my school, as a Professor of Pediatric Tropical Medicine and the Deputy Director for the Sabin Vaccine Institute and Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development. An internationally-recognized scientist with more than 16 years of experience in translational immunoparasitology research and vaccine development for neglected tropical diseases, my major interest lies in the role of vaccines as control tools integrated into international public and global health programs and initiatives. I earned her PhD in 1995 from the University of Florida. Marcia Castro, Associate Professor of Demography, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.My research focuses on infectious diseases (particularly mosquito borne), environmental change and health, environmental management for vector control, spatial patterns of disease transmission, and infant & child mortality. More specifically, I focus on the development and use of multidisciplinary approaches, combining data from different sources, to identify the determinants of disease transmission in different ecological settings, providing evidence for the improvement of current control policies, as well as the development of new ones. I earned my PhD in Demography from Princeton University in 2002. Anthony Wilson, Integrative Entomology Group Leader, The Pirbright Institute. I lead the Integrative Entomology group at The Pirbright Institute in the UK, studying the ability of insects (particularly mosquitoes) and ticks to transmit viruses and how this is affected by the environment. I have contributed opinions as an expert on vector-borne disease emergence for the European Food Safety Authority and the Global Strategic Alliances for the Coordination of Research on the Major Infectious Diseases of Animals and Zoonoses (STAR-IDAZ); I’m a member of the MACSUR European network on the impacts of climate change on food production via disease ecology; and I’m a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society. Additionally, I am a core member of Pirbright’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion committee, a site union representative and sits on the national panel for the Athena SWAN Charter awards, which recognize employer commitments to gender equality. I earned my PhD from the University of Oxford in 2008. Kacey Ernst, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, University of Arizona College of Public Health. My primary research interests are in determining how human-environment interactions alter risk of vector-borne disease transmission. I focus specifically on questions surrounding the emergence of Aedes-borne viruses such as dengue and Zika in the U.S.-Mexico border region and the development and uptake of sustainable control strategies for malaria in western Kenya. Recently, I partnered with the Centers for Disease Control to develop Kidenga, a community-based surveillance mobile application that is intended to educate communities and provide early warning of pathogen emergence. I have presented to the public in a wide range of forums on her research and the impact of climate change on human health, and earned my PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Michigan in 2006. [edit] Okay guys, I’m afraid we’re heading off now. Thank you very much for joining us, and hope we were able to give you some useful answers!

At the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, we will be delivering a presentation entitled “Research and Policy on Voter ID Laws and Voter Participation.” During that session, we’ll discuss the science on voter suppression, the statistical impact of voter ID laws, and procedures for assuring that all eligible voters have a chance to vote. David Marker will describe how as expert witness survey data were included, or excluded, in Voter ID cases in Texas, Pennsylvania, and Alabama. Paul Gronke will discuss the procedures states are implementing to maximize the chance that eligible voters will indeed be able to vote. If you have a question about how states are using technology either to boost or suppress voter participation, ask us anything! Participants: Paul Gronke, professor of political science, director of the Early Voting Information Center, Reed College, Portland, Ore. Automatic Works: The Gains to Voter Registration and Turnout from Oregon Motor Voter David Marker, senior statistician, Westat, Rockville, Md. Making Sure the Data are Heard: Expert Statistical Testimony in Voter ID Trials

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are really common – there are about 20 million new cases every year in the United States and about 110 million total infections according to the Centers for Disease Control (https://www.cdc.gov/std/stats/sti-estimates-fact-sheet-feb-2013.pdf). Yet people are often afraid to ask questions about these infectious diseases because of stigma around sex and STIs. We study STIs for a living and we’re not squeamish. We will be back at 1 pm ET to answer your questions, Ask us anything! Christine Johnston, Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Washington. I’m a physician-scientist at the University of Washington. I’m board-certificated in internal medicine and infectious diseases and provides primary care to patients with HIV infection. My clinical research focuses on the natural history and pathobiology of genital herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection and I’m interested in novel therapies to prevent and manage HSV infection, such as antiviral agents and vaccines. In addition, I am the Medical Director of the University of Washington Sexually Transmitted Diseases Prevention Training Center, which educates health care providers about prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections (STI). I earned her MD from the University of Minnesota Medical School in 2001. Ina Park, Medical Consultant, Division of STD Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Associate Professor, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of California San Francisco School of Medicine; Medical Director, California Prevention Training Center. I’m a medical epidemiologist with a passion for empowering and informing others about sexually transmitted disease (STD) prevention. My research interests include evaluation of serologic assays for diagnosis of syphilis and assessing the population-level impact of human papillomavirus vaccination. In 2012 I was recognized with the Young Investigator of the Year Award by the American STD Association, and recently served as a contributing author for the 2015 CDC STD Treatment Guidelines. I am currently writing a narrative non-fiction book for the lay public on STD and HIV prevention entitled “CLAP: The Science of Sex and its Least Intended Consequences”. I earned my MD in 2001 from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine and completed my residency in Family Medicine at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Los Angeles.

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This December, the first issue of Science Robotics was released. We wrote the research articles in that issue. I’m Huichan Zhao, and my research focused on how to imbue prosthetics with some attributes of the sense of touch. (http://robotics.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/eaai7529). Our final demonstration saw a robotic hand “feeling” three tomatoes to determine which one was ripe. I’m Duncan W. Haldane, and my team created a jumping robot that used as its model a leaping primate called a galago. (http://robotics.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/eaag2048). One powerful application for our robot would be in buildings that have collapsed and need to have a light, nimble robot search for survivors without disturbing the debris. I’m Surjo Soekadar, and I led a team that created a noninvasive, hybrid brain/neural hand exoskeleton (B/NHE) for quadriplegics restoring their ability to perform activities of daily living, such as eating and drinking independently (http://robotics.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/eaag3296). The results broadly suggest that brain/neural-assistive technology can restore autonomy and independence in quadriplegic individuals’ everyday life. And I’m Holly Russell. My team investigated how humans and autonomous vehicles adapt when the control of the vehicle switches from car to human and back again. (http://robotics.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/eaah5682) Our findings have implications for the design of vehicles that transition from automated to manual driving and for understanding of human motor control in real-world tasks. We will be back at 1 pm ET to answer your questions, Ask us anything!