Stuck in Winter Traffic? How to Stay Safe on the Road

Recently, I attended the annual meeting of the BioCommunications Association in Asilomar, Calif. Not surprisingly, the speakers, all professional communicators, were very good and spoke knowledgeably on their various topics. But something else impressed me during the informal times between presentations, and at mealtimes. These folks not only tended to speak well, but they also tended to listen well. And there’s a very strong case to be made for the importance of listening in effective communication.

What started out as a way for Howard Young, Ph.D., to thin out his garden last fall turned into the NCI at Frederick Green Team’s Plant Swap. The group held its Fall Plant Swap on October 24, encouraging all members of the Fort Detrick community to pick up a free plant or swap a plant of theirs for another. “Those who love to garden introduce others to the joy of gardening,” said Dolores Winterstein, a member of the Green Team and the coordinator of the Fall Plant Swap.

The Elementary Outreach Program (EOP) is looking for volunteers for the 2013–2014 school year. This program is designed to bring science into the classrooms of Frederick County students in grades 1 through 5. You’ll have a chance to work with small groups of children, presenting hands-on lessons that are coordinated with the school curriculum. Volunteer teams in each grade are scheduled to visit four schools in Frederick County this year.

Scientists at NCI and Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (FNLCR) are partnering with the Lustgarten Foundation to test whether a vitamin D derivative will make a difference when combined with a conventional anticancer drug in treating tumors of the pancreas.

The ping of an aluminum bat off a ball or the thump of a pop-up fly ball caught in a glove are two sounds familiar to baseball fans. Slow-pitch softball sounds—like those in the August game between mixed teams of NCI and Leidos Biomedical Research (formerly SAIC-Frederick) players—are similar.