Author is confused because he focuses only the ideas in commercial production. How long were lasers or LEDs or transistors or any number of fundamental inventions in existence before they made large commercial entrances that popular culture recognized? He needs to go into the labs and see how many fundamentally new items have been created in the last 10 years that are now in the world of development (and yes invention ) that reduces them to practice and economic accessibility and then tell us the cupboard is bare. Some guy whining about the shallowness of popular acclaim with a shallow assessment of the world.

the smart one is to use the fact so many people want to come here to draw on the brain pool of the world and keep the country in a strong technical position that keeps us rich and keeps it such a nice place to be - see how that feedback loop works ? We should make it possible for the talented to stay.

then somebodies racist but not Lego Or nobody is , but still not Lego

Jesus how much more tedious can 'this generation' get - by which I think I mean mine (maybe - how old is this chic)

Never heard of these guys , now your stupid action has brought them to my attention.

it's all coming together http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/09/17/2229257/warp-drive-might-be-less-impossible-than-previously-thought I know when it finishes - about 10 min after I die . Oops - should have done this as anonymous

Downs is not autistic . I am not completely opposed to this point of view but an insightful person would recognize the slippery slope here. In some cultures being female is a 'defect' and children are aborted. I think we shouldn't walk that easily into arbitrary determinations of worth ...

from Wikipedia "Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator" (sometimes pronounced "Illudium Pu-36") what a stupe I was as a child - just getting the Illudium joke now ....

not unexpected but unexplored I think. The impact of our digestive zoo seems more revealed each day - impacts on creating and suppressing disease , impact on the amount of nutrients we can get from the foods we eat , now perhaps contributions to our mental functioning. Maybe this got over hyped a little but I think the work is still interesting.

http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/A.Song/research/BallisticRectifier.htm this is the only link I could find , I saw this topic some time ago - the ability to build nano structures may solve the rectification - I am sure there was another paper with a different device configuration but I'll never find the thread now - doesn't make this tomorrow but it means a lead on both ends

Mod this guy up - whatever the truth of the case it seems like 10 months should be enough time to provide the evidence. Always hate to see the Canadians fall short - who's going to be our positive role model..

this is a lovely idea but surely isn't a complete vision of an education - part of the reason there are standard classes with standard exercises is that there are skills you need to have and background knowledge you need acquire to do the kind of cool stuff he envisions. You can't stand on the shoulders of giants if you don't climb up there and that is a lot of stuff to learn. Which doesn't mean that adding projects like this that drive a student to creatively exercise knowledge along the way wouldn't enrich and build on that understanding - just that you sort of do have to know what is already known to get to the point you can can add something new.

or the obligatory Star Trek Next Generation reference(s) - someone got a book out of this ?

Please mod this guy up. The best statement in this string about the fundamental error in the topic as presented . Anyone who feels they have come to understand the TRUTH about the world is welcome to it but that's not what science is about at it's core. It's about the creation of an outcome I desire by understanding "how" to create it. It's about finding the mathematical relationships between aspects of the reality we perceive - directly or through our tools. How we come to identify which mathematics might apply , envisioning models that build from our " "first-level" generalizations which are directly, perceptually obvious" , is an interesting topic but it never relates to discovering truth in the sense philosopher's seek.

thanks for the comment - I realize this quickly devolved into a discussion about what was or wasn't said in the article but it is interesting that the shape of the vehicle can create a hole in this plasma and thus provide another solution to the issue . Maybe it's not always possible to design the object involved to create this hole and the plasma antenna is a useful alternative, but in any case it was interesting to me to know this other 'solution' exists....