If there are fewer than 50% females in physics, that is a call to action, argues virtually ... everyone in academia. We need greater outreach for girls, we need to change classes to appeal to them, we need to fund campaigns to convince women who are inclined to be doctors and help people to instead work in a lab, we are told.

Why, argue others? We need doctors too. Science is hard, so is medicine. If a young woman wants to be a doctor instead of a physicist, so be it. If the social sciences are overwhelmingly female and the hard sciences are less overwhelmingly male, it is a tough argument to claim all those women in psychology were forced into it because sexism blocked them out of chemistry.

Is sex as addictive as cocaine or alcohol?

It depends on who you ask. Obviously there is an entire industry built up around the idea that it is, just like there is an industry build around homeopathy and curing gay people, but that doesn't mean the NIH should be funding those things.

The International Astronomical Union, which declared itself the arbiter of names for the entire universe, is in hot water with "Star Trek" fans. A social media campaign, including endorsements by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, put Vulcan at the top of the list of polls aimed at naming two moons (P4 and P5) orbiting Pluto but the IAU vetoed it anyway, according to the SETI press release.

Well, they also once vetoed Pluto itself - that 2% of astronomers got rid of a whole planet is the only reason anyone has ever heard of the IAU. Their own arbitrary rules instead say Kerberos and Styx, which placed second and third, win out. What rules?