The inaugural 2008 World Science Festival attracted over 120,000 people to the Festival's 44 events at 22 venues located throughout New York City. More than 130 participants, speakers, and performers, including 11 Nobel Laureates, guided a large, diverse audience-students to adults, novices to professionals, the merely curious to science enthusiasts-to experience science as never before, making the esoteric understandable and the familiar fascinating. Through a series of gripping debates, captivating performances and interactive events, the Festival showcased cutting- edge ideas and discoveries, revealed science's pivotal role in addressing critical global issues, and explored how it profoundly shapes modern life.

We noticed that a group of raiders attempted to block our progress to Wellspring by driving directly into our path with guns blazing. The surprise attack evoked images of Mad Max or The Road Warrior as these makeshift vehicles launched over dunes and the rough terrain of the Wasteland in a pack. Fortunately, our nimble buggy was much better than their junk heaps, and thanks to some quick turns and blasts of nitrous we were able to outmaneuver them and line them up for target practice. Once you get a target in front of you, your guns will autolock. After a few quick bursts, the raiders were turned into scrap and we were free to proceed.

Only three months after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, or Tamil Tigers) were defeated in the decades-long civil war in Sri Lanka, signs of economic recovery and a new sense of security are emerging across the country. Government and business groups are working hard to rebuild a tourist industry once hampered by fear of terrorist attacks, and fishermen are enjoying more freedom to fish harbors long restricted by the military. Although the popular mood seems optimistic, and the international community is encouraging rebuilding efforts with loans and other assistance, questions remain about the Sri Lankan government's tactics in the last weeks of the war - and its current treatment of Tamil refugees. Amnesty International's Science for Human Rights project just released a troubling analysis of satellite imagery of the restricted combat zone and Sri Lankan police continue to restrict access to journalists - and continue to prevent refugees from leaving their camps.