Being in science media for any length of time, you will discover what Martin Robbins, a self-proclaimed liberal, called The Big White Elephant In The Room - partisan framing of science issues through a cultural and political world view.  He referred to it as liberal bias, and he is a liberal, but not a self-loathing kind.  He doesn't recognize it is not liberal bias that is the problem, it is progressives.  Liberals can write articles talking about The Big White Elephant In The Room and worry that the lack of diversity in science media and science academia is harmful to those endeavors.

In the midst of CNN's non-stop coverage of a deceased singer whose biggest career hit was a cover of a Dolly Parton song, there may be a ray of rational sunlight shining down on a person worthy of our time; an accomplished military veteran, test pilot, Mercury astronaut and Senator named John Glenn.  50 years ago the 40-year-old Marine lieutenant sat atop a building-sized rocket stuffed with solid propellant and left the confines of Earth - backwards.

Despite claims by some of the more aggressive groups who attack science academia, women do not face a 'hostile' work environment because in some fields they are less than 50 percent or some other scientists are rude. Instead, they face a tough personal choice.

Getting tenure is hard.  The work load is tremendous.  More women than men tend to think it is not worth the effort and, if they have kids, that feeling becomes more so.  They are not rejecting science but they are opting for a higher quality of life.  Studies show that male scientists often wish they had made the same choice.

Americans of a particular cultural and political persuasion like to regard Europeans as 'more' scientific because surveys reveal that they say 'yes' to the appropriate buzzwords.  Not so, even to European scientists. Europeans are instead far more distrustful and dismissive of science than most Americans; they are precautionary principle-obsessed.

Scottish microbiologist Anne Glover would like to change that.  She just took office in Brussels as the first European chief scientific adviser and her first goal is to get people information in the hopes that they will stop listening to advocacy groups and accept science overall the same way they do politically charged topics like climate change.