I'd really love to see the discovery of a Quark Star.

Black Holes have two modes of creation.

One - observed and well-documented, Supernova explosion, with the core collapsing directly into a black hole.

The other is only known in theory. A neutron star obtaining enough mass through accretion to collapse either from interstellar gas or by connecting with another star (possibly also neutron). Before that happens though, there is a phase hypothesized between the neutron star and the black hole, where the matter degenerates enough that the neutron structure collapses and the star is composed of unstructured quarks. A little more and it collapses into a Black Hole.

No such star has been observed, and we don't know what other effects accompany it. The mass window is very narrow, somewhere between 3 and 4 solar masses, but the exact boundaries are not known. Dual systems with neutron stars of very short period are the candidates for this to happen. Hulse-Taylor binary binary will merge within next 300mln years, but I really hope we can observe one within our lifetimes.

Possibly. I believe I learned the expression used by movements of Martin Luther King. It's quaint how expressions used by the revolutionaries that start a great change for better for a minority become slurs for that minority.

Well, I'll keep it in mind.

The same gender research that was thrown out of Swedish university for lack of scientific foundations?

I'm afraid it will only cause a backslash in the 90-percentile whites harmed by this policy.

You can't fight racism with a different form of racism. If racial bias is to vanish, it must *vanish*; you can't replace it with a different racial bias.

4 cables in one neat bundle you never need to disconnect, treating telescope mount, camera, focus and autoguider plus the hub as a single device.
One cable to the laptop which you need to manage.

Sorry, but RS232 is far from obsolete in the embedded world.

Newest SBC with all modern gizmos? Boasts 6 RS-232 and 2 RS-485 ports. Initial connection over serial console, as is the industry standard. RS232 to radio for receiving traffic messages from vehicles. RS232 to a GSM module for synchronizing the clock in network-less situations. RS485 to communicate with a board providing central control connectivity. (and hey, the board doesn't even network to the central facility directly! It connects over RS232 to a Tibbo box which acts as "RS232 over IP" bridge!) RS232 debug console, RS485 bus to communicate with other devices in the area, RS232 for in-system-programming of the supervisor CPU, and optional RS232 modem, although usually we provide a GSM router with Ethernet instead.

In the embedded world RS232 is the king and nowhere near to going away. USB is far too cumbersome for developers, Ethernet still needs to be configured before you start working, WiFi is a whole pile of headaches... RS232 works whether you work with a newest I.MX6 quad core or a PIC with 1KM RAM.

It could have thin rechargeable batteries a'la a phone, plus a charging socket.
That way you can either keep it plugged in (at no loss of current functionality) or unplug it and enjoy wirelessness.

I need my mouse maybe once a month, but when I need it I NEED it (really need to edit some graphics quick, and touchpad is absolutely terrible for that.) And the last thing I need then is finding the batteries died.

Oh, also, no internal Bluetooth. Need a dongle. A USB dongle.

The contacts are not a big problem. The wire wear near the plug is. When working with my netbook, the charger plug with adjacent piece of wire needs to be replaced roughly every 20 months.

If I want to do any graphics, touchpad is really a horrible input device for that. I carry a small mouse just for that purpose.
And the other port is usually occupied by the USB modem.
Yeah, I could download whatever graphics I need, unplug the modem, plug the mouse in, make the graphics and switch the devices again. But that's damn cumbersome, especially that the modem needs some 2-3 minutes to start and connect.

It's a subject far too touchy to be critically analyzed by any scientist who wants to retain their reputation. In case the results don't fit the current political agenda, too bad for the results and the scientist who obtained them.

I'm pretty sure IQ tests that are gender and ethnic background neutral (e.g. developed by a mixed team of all backgrounds) are entirely possible. It's just a can of worms nobody wants to open, because *POSSIBLY* - similarly to how different races, nationalities and genders have different predispositions in sports (take the separation of men's and women's leagues in almost all sports) - so do human brains.

But in this case objective truth will not be known anytime soon. Any initial research is bound to contain faults, as is standard for every single domain of research. But while in other domains the faults are detected, pointed out and corrected in incremental research phases without any fuss, in this case they mean totally ruining the career of the researcher.

The same *distribution* of skill levels over a bell curve.

Have two sets: [1 3 5 7 9] and [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9]. They have the same distribution, the same averages and medians. Pick 4 highest elements of each set. Compare averages now.

I am familiar with the concept. It's a concept of trying to fit data into preconceived idea. It's bad science and it produces faulty results.

It's like you were performing drug tests with use of a test group and a control group but ditched performing any tests on the control group assuming it's 'default' and none of symptoms appearing in the test group ever happen in the control group.

Any gender bias studies are entirely fallacious if they are gender-biased.

I'm not a native speaker. I'm sorry but I don't know the subtle nuances of what is considered politically incorrect at given moment in time, especially that it changes month-to-month.

"Maleness is defaultness."

The heck?

You are comparing two groups. And a'priori you assume one group is "default" and the other is "exceptional" despite their population giving a percent or so of advantage to the other. You don't analyze symmetries and asymmetries but only "experiences" of one of the groups, completely disregarding the counterpart. And then you draw comparative conclusions without performing actual comparisons.

I'd say your research method is flawed from moment one.