The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the betterment of all humanity. It is the world's largest and most prestigious general scientific society, with 126,995 individual and institutional members at the end of 2008,Publisher's own data and is the publisher of the well-known scientific journal Science, which has a weekly circulation of 138,549.