Science education initiatives have laid the groundwork for standards-based learning and provide web-based support tools for teachers. Science and policy programs include the major annual forum on Science & Technology policy, S&T policy fellowships within the US Congress and government agencies, and the tracking of US funding for R&D research. Global efforts include programs and partnerships worldwide, from Asia to Europe to Africa, and extensive work in human rights using geospatial technology to corroborate abuses. The mission, to 'advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people,' has propelled the organization to the forefront of national and international initiatives. However, there remains hope that other modes of life capable of maintaining themselves permanently can be found.ĪAAS, founded in 1848, has evolved into the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society with nearly 130,000 members and subscribers. Attempts to find a scheme for preserving life based on solid structures fail because events such as quantum tunneling recurrently disorganize matter on a very long but fixed time scale, whereas all energy sources slow down progressively in an expanding universe. The related questions of whether entropy will continue increasing without limit in the future, and whether such increase in the form of Hawking radiation or radiation from positronium might enable life to maintain itself permanently, are considered. An expanding ``causal'' region is defined in which the entropy, though increasing, tends to fall further and further behind its maximum possible value, thus allowing for the development of order.

Some major sources of entropy increase are listed. The question of how the observed evolution of organized structures from initial chaos in the expanding universe can be reconciled with the laws of statistical mechanics is studied, with emphasis on effects of the expansion and gravity.

Universe entropy