Genetic engineering rice to add vitamin A is ass kicking science and haters should kiss off. Being worried about engineering plants to allow huge amounts of pesticides to be applied just might be rational. Sticking in random genes that make plants toxic to the insects that co-evolved with them might boost production but might wipe out whole species. Like every other part of science people get scared when they don't understand it and more importantly when they think money is in control and no one is watching.

If you see two equal candidates in terms of technical credentials but you know one can bring a perspective you perceive to be weakly represented in the field I don't find it unexpected that people might reach for that rare candidate. We are not told what the female census was of these institutions nor what the typical application profile looks like. Sorry I can't get all torn up over this - if we see the same thing once there is some balance in the ranks and all capable girls have role models to encourage them to pursue these fields if they have the talent and inclination to try I will change my view.

your right, what's the harm in letting people discriminate based on their prejudices, it's not like so many people would do it that someone is actually hurt

major co-incidence today as my PBS station was putting on it's fundraiser series of every diet plan guy in the world. So much fluff to info, but one person was arguing this same viewpoint (gut biota and tendency to be obese) and showed a startling pair of maps - one with the level of antibiotic prescription and the other with the level of obesity. Startling overlap. Google "antibiotic obesity map" Theory being that the use of antibiotics disturbs the balance or microbes and set more of the population up for obesity. Since the idea is that different bacteria feed on different foods this comes back to skipping refined cards and sugars and eating more vegetables - basically the same kind of prescription they all end up with - and trying to skew the population faster with probiotics. On thing I do now is that every thin person out there is not a paragon of good eating and exercise and not every fat person is a pig with their head in the trough. I was never a skinny person but got progressively more massive with age until one doctor finally thought to test my thyroid which was pretty much crapped out. On the synthetic stuff now and slowly morphing back to - well, something thinner.

we need a meritocracy - to have that all people need a chance to perform. If we have a culture and a practice of driving half the population away from a field we make both the group and the field poorer. So the idea that we have to have some specific number of women in tech may be faulty but the idea that we should examine how we do things and insure qualified and talented women get a chance to contribute seems pretty sensible. Having some kind of quantifiable target to insure actual effort is made is not unreasonable unless the target itself is. Pushing to get 20% candidates (didn't say hires) doesn't seem wildly off the wall. This is the last step in a chain of education and training that may all need examination but the creation of role models changes cultural expectations.

"Science doesn't disprove God so much as start by assuming God doesn't exist, and operate within the boundaries of what we can actually demonstrate" Really a great statement - I can't remember the book now but it started by pointing out science is fundamentally about predicting and controlling the future by knowing how to manipulate the physical world. For some people there is a hunger to understand the meaning of reality or the source of existence. That is not what science searches for or teaches. And in the end religion isn't any better at answering these questions - if God created the universe who created God - what does it mean for anything to exist. For the human mind at least it really is "elephants all the way down" (sorry obscure reference alert)

Leave the STEM jobs to the blue state kids....

we could learn from the Chinese regulation of fine particulate :>)

V'Ger or V GER

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