THE ANNUAL conferences of the American Affiliation for the Development of Science afford researchers an opportunity to point out off what they do finest. These roaming the corridors in Boston between February thirteenth and fifteenth had been handled to talks on the whole lot from plate tectonics and ancient DNA analysis to gene modifying and nuclear energy. All characterize the cutting-edge analysis to be anticipated in a rustic that has lengthy prided itself on, as per this 12 months’s theme, producing the “science shaping tomorrow”.