Marc Cenedella has excavated an old resume of da Vinci, the very definition of 'renaissance man' and  'genius'.  At the time, da Vinci was applying to work for the Duke of Milan.

Wired UK looks at his resume (Was Da Vinci the right man for the job?) and (being Wired) come to exactly the wrong conclusions.

We scientists have a desperate need to make our science interesting to everyone-- including ourselves. Our terminology reflects this. In astronomy, we have the Big Bang. In comp sci, computers Crash. In engienering, "Test to Destruction".

But at some point, usually when I'm in a classroom, my science audience wants me to do something extreme. Mix chemicals until they explode. Shatter a rose in liquid nitrogen. Fire off a rocket. Something 'kinetic', in the sense of lots of fragments of something once whole being rent a'sunder.

As usual, parody best covers the dilemma, as with this week's "The Onion" science headline: Science Channel Refuses To Dumb Down Science Any Further.

Take 2 minutes with Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield and you too will know how to pee in space.  And the origins of shooting stars.   He starts with "when you go to the bathroom on Earth, you are relying on gravity, pretty heavily... imagine if you were halfway done and someone shut off the gravity, it would be a mess..." and it just gets better from there.  You'll never look at the sky the same way again.