The Journal Science Unveils New "Science Population App" for iPad Users

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new interactive, multimedia-enhanced iPad application from the journal Science features award-winning journalism and peer-reviewed research on global population growth and its impacts on education, health, quality-of-life, economics and natural resources.

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With the planet's population clicking past 7 billion this year and projected to reach 9.3 billion by 2050, the new Science Population App pulls together authoritative content from the journal, plus additional videos, podcasts and interactive graphics in a package that iPad users can explore when, where and how they need it.

Researchers expect almost all of the population growth over the next four decades to be concentrated in the world's poorest countries, raising urgent questions such as how best to prevent food shortages. Yet, in other regions, populations of working-age people are expected to shrink, resulting in economic pressures. Science iPad App users can tap on a graphic "film strip," then swipe viewing panes sideways, up or down to interact with five media-rich sections of content on population-related issues. Readers can explore, for example, the long-running debate on whether family planning programs help reduce high fertility rates, the accuracy of current population prediction models, and whether more people may sometimes trigger positive economic shifts.

Science Publisher Beth Rosner, director of Publishing and Membership Services at the nonprofit American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), said the new App represents another important step toward making high-quality scientific information accessible to an increasingly diverse global audience.

"By making this Science Population content available through the Apple App Store, we hope to introduce an even broader international community to science generally," said Rosner. "Whether our readers are scientists and engineers, or high-school students and teachers, we want to play a role in promoting public interest in the scientific enterprise. We also hope of course that some App users will decide to support the AAAS mission by becoming members."

Science previously rolled out a free iPhone application, Science Mobile, to make selected news content available to the public, and the journal's Web sites are constantly undergoing enhancements to improve each visitor's experience, said Stewart Wills, Science Editorial Director, Web & New Media. (See www.sciencemag.org.)

"Like many Web publishers, we're seeing steady increases in the percentage of users who access our content on mobile devices," Wills said. "The new Science Population App is a natural evolution of what we're doing on the Web. It's an exciting opportunity to extend the scientific discussion on a vital topic."

Ian King, director of marketing for AAAS and Science said: "A primary objective of the new Science Population App was to provide useful content through platforms that are both convenient and exciting for them. The iPad technology lets us leverage outstanding Science content to create a meaningful experience for our readers."

The new App is available for $4.99 via the Apple iTunes Store online. (Search for the "Science Population" App.) AAAS members also can access the Science Population iPad App by logging onto the MemberCentral Web site at http://membercentral.aaas.org/announcements/science-population-app-here.

AAAS membership is open to all and conveys 51 issues of Science per year, plus other benefits such as Policy Alerts, Science Roundups, travel and product discounts, and more. Membership helps to support AAAS programmatic activities related to science literacy and education, science policy, international research collaboration and science diplomacy, and public engagement with science and technology. For more information on membership, see www.aaas.org/membership.

The new App reflects work by a team of AAAS-Science staff, including Gilbert Chin, Corinna Cohn, Will Collins, Andrew Green, Martyn Green, Walter Jones, Ian King, Kerry Klein, Tara Marathe, Leslie Roberts, Andrew Whitesell and Stewart Wills.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal, Science (www.sciencemag.org) as well as Science Translational Medicine (www.sciencetranslationalmedicine.org) and Science Signaling (www.sciencesignaling.org). AAAS was founded in 1848, and includes some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million. The non-profit AAAS (www.aaas.org) is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy; international programs; science education; and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, www.eurekalert.org, the premier science-news Web site, a service of AAAS.

AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society, dedicated to "Advancing science ∙ Serving society."

SOURCE AAAS