I'm pretty sure heat flow issues are also part of the reason. Vacuum is the best possible insulator, whereas helium is excellent at transferring heat away from the spindle.

That goalpost must be heavy.

But this clearly wasn't true in the 40s, 50s and 60s in this country. Rather, the exact opposite was more likely. Conservatism has changed, which is ironic if you think about it.

I would hasten to add that the researchers by and large would be happy to have their research disseminated as widely as possible. This is shown by the fact that in my experience researchers will happily send you a preprint of finished paper if you email them. It is just how things are done. The barrier to dissemination here is the for-profit publishers.

"That which is not just, is not law.' - William Lloyd Garrison

Which will be modded by tomorrow, if not official patched.

This is simply untrue, certainly with windows 7, and really also with XP for my last several years of using it. I suppose you could say I spent 10 hours a year installing drivers and whatnot in XP, but even that is not an issue for 7. Literally my only problem since installing Win7 has been a bad stick of RAM. Other then that I haven't had to do much of anything other then agree to let various things update now and then.

These structures are effectively 0-dimensional as far as electrons (and holes, since the places electrons should be are treated like particles) are concerned. There is no place for the electrons to go. This is as opposed to nanowires (1D) and thin films (2D)

But you still win, viz. India in the present day.

While I suspect you are picking a school at random to make fun of Kansas, as someone who spent a summer in the KSU physics dept. doing research as an undergrad I feel compelled to defend them. I suppose you have a point if you are talking about MBAs or comunication majors or some other low form of life, but in the sciences state schools, and KSU in the physics department specifically, due lots of cutting edge science and offer outstanding opportunities for students. KSU for instance is home the the JR McDonald National Accelerator Laboratory, and there were a great many undergrads working there alongside the graduate students.

None of those things is going to happen, and budgeting for them is a waste of money better spent on actual space science and astronomy, like the stuff outlined in the new AAS Decadal Survey Of Astronomy and Astrophysics: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12951

A live Japanese girl would do that either . Padded bra in the face is not nearly as satisfying.

Also, 'Insightful' not 'Funny'? Really?

While you are correct that is was well known that the world was round amongst educated people and sailors, I think that if you asked the vast majority of random people what shape the earth was 500 years ago they would have answered flat. The whole point of that scene is that while there exist at any time intelligent and/or educated people as individuals 'people' taken as a mass are nowhere near as educated or able to swiftly change worldview based on even readily apparent facts.

The only time this came up in undergrad for me, it was with a math professor of mine, and she really did write the best book in the field. When I later took another class from her, she was writing a book for that too and just gave everyone in the class preprint manuscripts. I think the scenario of the evil professor assigning their own expensive crappy book and cackling is pretty much a made up one.

Indeed. Currently lack mod points.