In advance of President Obama’s State of the Union address next week, RealClearPolitics is rolling out daily “state of” reports to better frame the issues he might discuss. The following is a transcript of how their RealClearScience division would deliver a "State of Science" address.

Despite the claims of Department of Energy experts interns that they are all completely qualified to pick winners and losers among technology companies and rationalization by the New York Times that the Solyndra failure was just healthy capitalism, it isn't being washed over in the broad media as easily.CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson, one of the original reporters that uncovered the Solyndra scandal, has outlined 11 more companies that are part of Obama's Energy program and have floundered despite an outrageous $6.5 billion in taxpayer money. Five have already filed for bankruptcy: Beacon, Evergreen Solar, SpectraWatt, AES' subsidiary Eastern Energy and Solyndra.   Only $30 billion more in losses to go.

5,000 years ago, Stonehenge was built.  Beyond that, not much is known. Why it was a built - as a  a temple of healing, a calendar, or even a royal cemetery - and how, has been a matter of speculation.Researchers say they are closer to cracking one aspect of the mysteries after working out the exact spot where some of the rocks came from - an outcrop 150 miles away in north Pembrokeshire.

A ceramic stamp has been found in Acre, northern Israel, during excavations at Horbat Uza - but and it dates to the Byzantine Era.The tiny seal has the image of a seven-branch menorah and was used to stamp the kosher sign on bread 1,500 years ago. It has Greek letters that spell out what the researchers believe to be the name of the baker, Launtius."The presence of a Jewish settlement so close to Akko -- a region that was definitely Christian at this time -- constitutes an innovation in archaeological research," said Danny Syon, director of the excavation.

Progressive journalists love to insist Republicans are both stupid and rich, which would seem to be in defiance of common sense. America's smartest people can't figure out how to make money?It doesn't matter, it is a logical fallacy created to rationalize why only 6% of academia is Republican; smart people become Democrats and if you don't believe that, you are anti-science.

Is science just lacking a bumper sticker slogan?  Paul Root Wolpe, director of the Center for Ethics at Emory University, seems to think so.  Aside from being in New Scientist, you can see a problem with the piece in his first sentence:SCIENCE is under assault.

Is geekness important in your choice of a Republican candidate? Maybe to the five Republicans who still read Scientific American it is - and progressive scribe Chris Mims is here to outline the science and geek cred of people in a political party he has never voted for and never will.  Most Scientific American readers will find his analysis, as one commenter put it, "mildly comforting", because they were never voting for a Republican anyway and this is pleasant enough confirmation bias.

Existing methods for removing carbon dioxide from smokestacks and other sources, including the atmosphere, are energy intensive, don't work well and have other drawbacks but solid materials based on polyethylenimine, a readily available and inexpensive polymeric material, have led to a process which achieves some of the highest carbon dioxide removal capacity ever reported for real-world conditions where the air contains moisture.After capturing carbon dioxide, the materials give it up easily so that the CO2 can be used in making other substances, or permanently isolated from the environment. The capture material then can be recycled and reused many times over without losing efficiency. 

Here's a bet: Can you revive an old laptop computer thrown in the garbage, not by repairing its internal components but by using augmented reality, thus transforming this inert, rain-soaked object into something functional again – something that looks "alive" for any casual observer from the outside?

National Institute of Standards and Technology theoretical physicist James Baker-Jarvis died in a Colorado hospital after a 3-foot tree branch came through his auto windshield and impaled him during a windstorm.But even after the 3-inch diameter branch went through his chest, he still held on long enough to pull the Subaru Outback to the side of the road, saving his wife from injury.If you have to go, saving the life of someone you love is the way to do it right.R.I.P.NIST scientist killed after winds send branch his windshield north of Boulder by Mitchell Byars, Daily Camera