The annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science is underway in Boston. This means one of the largest aggregations of pointy heads anywhere has converged on an already pointy-headed city. Underway since Thursday, the conference wraps up today.

Cruising the exhibit hall at the AAAS meeting in Boston

The AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science. We came along to collect our 2012 award for online journalism for Elwha: The Grand Experiment, our project on the world's largest dam removal. And, of course to feast on the panels on all things scientific, from the amazing ability of mussels to stick to wet rocks (look for a story on this soon) to work underway to develop more sustainable fish farms (ditto.)

But what do these people do for fun?

The best way to understand this is to browse the exhibit hall, with everything from a mock wind tunnel for demonstrating the amazing wing adaptations of bats (fake bats, don't worry) to posters on research that even after your read them leave you wondering, hmmm, what could that be about?

With as many as 11,000 participants, more than 160 symposia, lectures and the doings in the exhibition hall, it's quite the gathering. And where else can you get this?

A button only Darwin fans could love, just some of the swag at the AAAS exhibit hall.