technology

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Creeping Equality

Women now get more than half of all the doctorates awarded in American universities, but they’re still catching up in the fields of chemistry, engineering, and math.

Already, statistics from the Council of Graduate Schools show that women, overall, earned slightly more than half of the doctorates handed out in all disciplines in the United States in 2009 and 2010. When it comes to the STEM fields, women have been most successful in medicine and biology – and least successful in engineering, math and computer science.

But experts hope that, too, will change. A recent report from the American Association of University Women notes that, 30 years ago, the ratio of seventh- and eighth-grade boys who scored more than 700 on the SAT math exam, compared with girls, was 13 to 1. Now it’s 3 to 1.

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We May Not Be Able to Imagine the Wonderul Transformations Looming

Technological breakthroughs happen so often and we adapt to them so quickly, they make miracles seem commonplace.

Once technology jumps over a hurdle thought impassable before, it makes that supposed miracle utterly commonplace and boring. 40 years ago, the idea of a mobile smart phone was utter magic. Now, nobody even bats an eye at it even as the ripples of this change affect us all in surprising ways. That’s what technology does — it makes miracles so easy, it’s boring.