I've worked in many companies where IT is separate from R&D. The distinction is that IT is mainly about corporate computer infrastructure (how information technology is applied to support a business) and R&D is about contributing to the business' bottom-line. In cases where the company is a technology/software company, IT and R&D are most certainly separate departments. IT is usually considered a liability on the balance sheets whereas the latter is considered a profit center. Sure, some IT professionals dabble in writing software, but it's quite different from a company whose business is technology/software. I wonder whether the underlying data in the charts can be stratified further to reflect such a distinction. I would suspect that IT (liability side) salaries are on the lower end of the scale with some overlap in the middle, depending upon what kind of business it supports. Businesses in software/technology are more likely to pay a premium, thus filling out the higher end of the scale.

It's no longer transparent if it changes the traffic it is proxying...

Regardless of one's beliefs, I don't know how you're concluding that this particular star was created when the universe came into existence. Surely when astronomers talk about stellar nurseries, they've observed that stars are getting created even now.

Only if the star was formed 6,000 years ago - something no one has claimed to be true. The time of the formation of the star does not necessarily correspond to the biblical timeframe for when the universe was created. What we know is that the star is at least 2,600 year old because we are observing its light. But it's likely older since we didn't just see it blink into existence.

2,600 light years is distance, not age. It could be much older.

I don't know the details of the UK court order, but it seems like it was about publication of the paper. Did the court order also include a gag order to prevent speaking about the topic as well?

does not extend into the US where the conference will be held.

Amazon owns IMDB, BTW.

Practitioners and patients of Homeopathy and traditional Chinese medicine seem to believe that they work. Wouldn't it be good to devote some resources towards scientific study of these practices? Even if it's to prove that the placebo effect is playing a part, at least science is advanced. Just because we don't understand whether/how it works doesn't rule out the possibility that there might be something to be discovered. If we want to be objective about it, why not study it?