Thursday, August 24, 2006

In the News

Three news items of note that made me laugh, cry, and rejoice respectively:

  1. Pluto is no longer a planet
  2. Evolutionary Biology was the only field that did not appear on a list of areas eligible for a new US dept. of Education grant
  3. The Morning After Pill has been approved for over the counter distribution

Number Two sucks, plain and simple. But Number Three more than makes up for it!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

For Number two note that 'the only major with evolution in its title was one of only three from among the physical sciences that appears to have been deleted from the list. For unknown reasons, "behavioral sciences" and "exercise psychology" are also absent'.

Presumably the omission of the first was to appease the evangelicals; the second to appease the scientologists; and the third to appease those who believe that most modern degrees are a waste of time...

Personally, I'm very upset to lose Pluto which was always one of my favourite planets, just for being so damned quirky. But I note that a counter-attack has been launched by NASA ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5283956.stm ), probably because a) it is has just spent a fortune sending a probe to Pluto and b) Pluto was the only planet discovered by an American.

Pamphilia said...

Yeah, Pluto was my favorite planet too! Maybe because it was so far away that you just had to believe in its existence and believe that it was a planet, even though you couldn't see it. Plus, it's nice to think of the underworld as a planet that's so far away no one can get close enough to take pictures of it.