Of course this could be due to random chance! But with a sample of over 80,000 applications from 40,000 investigators, they report a p-value of 0.001 (from TFA), so there's a more than 99.9% probability that these results are not due to chance. Which, to me, is worth more than an ambivalent "-shrug-". Most scientific research relies on findings that are much more ambiguous than this.

Having worked with many people who made grades and passed standardized tests while maintaining a shockingly remedial actual understanding, and having met some brilliant mathematicians with no skill whatsoever in communicating their ideas, I can't agree. I also think that an essay gives a student with an inferior education but superior education a chance to distinguish him or herself even though s/he may not have been taught the tricks to taking standardized tests.

No, it wouldn't be offensive. None of those stereotypes imply anything terribly negative about men, whereas

does imply that the main reasons a woman would buy a computer are to help her stay thin and help her in the kitchen. I can think of some very offensive racial analogies that I'd rather not say, but I think the equivalent marketing technique for /. would be a computer advertising its media capabilities as "making your pr0n seem so real, you'll forget you don't have a girlfriend," advertising crypto features "so it would take the NSA 15 years to get at your address book," and maybe making a chamber pot attachment "so you don't have to interrupt your WoW raid at the crucial moment."

And they think now is the time? With the recession, consumer spending is down--a problem--so let's not make it more expensive for people to buy exactly the products they want to spend money on. Maybe not a bad idea, but give it a year.

I went to a rigorous math/sci/engineering school and as a math major managed to study abroad and knock off some requirements at the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics. It is mostly for mathematicians, but some courses like combinatorics might be of interest for a CS major. And one course, Conjecture and Proof, is one of the best I ever took.