As a 2nd place winner of the 2009 JYI Research Department Award, I was privileged to travel with the executive board of JYI to the city of Chicago, the site of the Annual American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS) Conference. The theme of the conference, "Our Planet and Its Life: Origins and Futures," was displayed everywhere across the conference and played a critical component in many of the conference's lectures, topical seminars, and radio broadcasts.