Interestingly, the same things can be said about High Energy Physics - in the last half century, physicists have figured out the standard model of particle physics. Meanwhile, the cost of pushing back the energy frontier (cf LHC) is at the level where it funding is required from a large portion of the Western world to make a major discovery. Research is driven by grad students and post docs, most of whom can never get a permanent position, while funding is diminishing in real terms.

For me, the current academic system needs updating from the 19th century. It is bad for science not to make the change, because we see the good staff leaving to find a proper job.

You should decide on the solution then agitate for it. For example, one might say Proportional Representation is a solution, as it permits for a broader spectrum of parties/mandates/issues to be represented. (This is my opinion having voted in UK for ~ 4 elections).

Back to the article... Parity violation has been known in quarks for many many years - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K... (hint: CP violation means charge-parity violation, which is a special case of Parity violation)

Interestingly, the word KitKat originally derives from pies made in London. The KitKat club, deriving its name from originally meeting in a certain London pie shop, was a social centrepiece of the whig oligarchy that managed the UK government in the early part of the 18th century, and also one of the first institutions to introduce the concept of copyright, thanks to support from Tonson, a publisher and lobbyist for the publishing industry. It is not clear whether there is any relation between KitKat confectionery and KitKat pies, however.

The problem with excel is that it is hard to document against and test. In the software world we have lovely tools like doxygen and all sorts of testing suites. We have nice things like functions, classes. One can do analogous things in spreadsheets, but they just aren't as well set up for that sort of stuff. It makes it hard to define what is going on into logical blocks, hard to break that down into blocks that can be tested against. I'm not someone who cares about this language or that language, but I do care that a developer goes through some development process that includes testing and documentation, and I don't see how that can be done in excel.

CERN has invested in about 5 million lines of C++ code (google GEANT4 and ROOT) - there is no backing out of C++ now. Python is nice because it can sit on top of the C++ backend and provide less buggy UI. It is also becoming the de facto standard for scientific computing (not just in HEP).

The JPARC (H- ion) linac actually has a 50 cm kink following the recent earthquake. It still works! That's why we install trim magnets...

Who said Japan is paying for half the fees? Physicists hope that Japan will stump up, but this has not been stated by anyone in authority to make such a decision. $5 bn is not small change. Nb: asking for money may be awkward at the moment following an uncontrolled release of a tiny amount of radioactive material at JPARC a couple of weeks ago in somewhat uncomfortable circumstances...

If anyone didn't spot the reference: http://www.giantbomb.com/shodan/3005-423/ Shodan was the baddy AI from System Shock, classic 90s FPS.

Nice, but citation needed.

Universal education was an invention of the enlightenment, so started coming in mid-18th century e.g. universal primary education was introduced in, say, Austro Hungarian empire by Empress Maria Theresa during 1740/50s.

A couple more

• The LASER
• Superconductor (concept)
• Superconducting wires
• Particle accelerators

The list is endless

Agreed. There is a lego clone called megabloks - that uses the same interface as lego but much cheaper. If you mix lego with megabloks, it is clear that the megabloks build quality is far inferior, leading to crap buildings that fall over. lego is actually decent stuff.

The ability to have autonomous vehicles is immensely powerful. Flying drones is stupid and can be dismissed out of hand - but the technology to do this with the road network is already here.

The bread I make at home lasts about a week. Store it in a bread bin or a bag on your bread and yours will to.