Dr. Sven Treitel has been named the 2012 recipient of the Marcus Milling Legendary Geoscientist Medal. David Monk, President Elect for the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG), will accept this prestigious award on behalf of Treitel as part of the awards ceremony at the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Annual Meeting in Long Beach, California on April 22.

Meg Town, a teacher at Redmond Junior High School in Redmond, Washington, has been named the 2012 recipient of the Edward C. Roy Jr. Award for Excellence in K-8 Earth Science Teaching. Town, who earned her master's degree in education from the University of Washington, has spent her career challenging middle and junior high school students with inquiry-based, hands-on learning in the Earth sciences. Earth science is, she says, "the most touchable science."

Tornadoes are notoriously difficult to forecast, with often deadly results: In 2011, tornadoes in the U.S. killed more than 550 people, a higher death toll than in the past 10 years combined. Now a new study on short-term climate trends offers a fresh approach to tornado forecasting that may give people in tornado-prone regions more warning that twisters may soon be descending.

The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) is pleased to announce that, effective immediately, institutional subscribers to EARTH Magazine can now register for IP-based access for their users to view the full content of EARTH Magazine digitally. This option allows for seamless IP-based access for library users to PDF copies of all issues of EARTH. Print copies of the magazine will continue to be provided to all institutional subscribers unless they specify that they no longer wish to receive print copies. Perpetual access all subscribed issues of EARTH is provided with this feature.

What do changes in weather and stressed-out birds have to do with your health? In a study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jeffry Shaman of Columbia University and Marc Lipsitch of Harvard University are beginning to see a new link between La Nina conditions and outbreaks of the flu that could help governments and public health officials determine when the next pandemic will strike.

The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) is pleased to announce that the new edition of its cornerstone reference, The Directory of Geoscience Departments, has just been published. The new 47th edition is currently available as an e-book for the Kindle, iBookstore, and Nook, and will be available in print directly from our website (http://www.agiweb.org/pubs/pubdetail.html?item=800801) or through amazon.com starting April 2, 2012.

Beautiful views and exotic thrills draw millions of tourists to volcanic sites each year. Previously frequented by smaller numbers of experienced hikers and trained tour guides, today's volcanic sites are plagued by throngs of novice hikers, who are often ill-prepared and uneducated about the risks of volcano geotourism. These groups of vacation-goers often display a lackadaisical attitude about safety that can put their lives at risk.

Since last July, NASA's Dawn spacecraft has been orbiting the asteroid Vesta, and capturing images and other data that are providing surprising results to the delight and amazement of researchers. Dawn's mission is to help reveal the processes and conditions that marked the first few million years - the dawn - of the solar system; and the information the spacecraft has collected about Vesta is changing the way scientists think about the formation of our early universe.

The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) is proud to support National Groundwater Awareness Week, March 11-17, 2012. National Groundwater Awareness Week, sponsored by AGI member society the National Ground Water Association (NGWA) - promotes the responsible stewardship of groundwater through education and outreach initiatives that help make society aware of this life-sustaining resource.

What if we could cheaply and efficiently detect a potent new energy source, while also monitoring for environmental safety? Olivier Carriere, a physicist in the Marine Physical Laboratory at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and other researchers are using the symphony of sound produced in the ocean to do just that.