This one is particularly shocking:
"KATHRYN CLANCY: An eye on harassment"
basically, she discovered hos prevalent sexual harassment is in science. It looks like programmers and such aren't so bad, but more like the society as a whole. Depressing.
What's depressing and ironic is that these people are anthropologists and yet they are "shocked" and "surprised" by the results. Breaking news: Anthropologists Discover Sexuality in Humans.
What did they think would happen in an academic setting artificially sterilized of any attempt at realistic imperfect human relations? Of course there is harassment, people are frustrated. Note that I'm not excusing the behaviour, just trying to explain.
Aside the mere statement that there is harassment, it would be much more interesting and helpful in actually overcoming the problem to see the actual dynamics of the phenomenon backed by some actual data (she's aware herself how flimsy the data currently is, it says so in the article).
So fucking depressing. I can't believe this is the what all of "science" achieved this year. I'm not saying that these things aren't important in and of themselves. But from a pure science perspective, it's like, WTF? Where is the new insight, the discovery? I mean, it's not every year that you discover relativity or the genome, but come on, most of this is pretty weak sauce.
No, these are some 10 people no one ever heard of that Nature decided are worth knowing. They are, but their achievements are just a small part of what has been achieved in 2013.
I get the feeling you've considerably misinterpreted the article: "365 days: Nature's 10. Ten people who mattered this year." Instead of "The only ten things science accomplished this year".
I actually find your comment so outrageous I'm starting to wonder if it's a joke?
Think of it from the perspective of a kid. Do they want to be a scientist? What is a scientist? (Or, equivalently, the parents of a kid might ask this question.) And they see this list. I'm sure everyone on it is smart, well-meaning, hard-working, and indeed their work is probably of more benefit to society than the vast majority of others. So far, so good.
But with the exception of the cloning guy, I don't see anything inspirational on that list. I don't see anyone working on quantum computing or AI, solving a long-standing math problem, or examining the gravitational constant to an exceedingly fine degree, or examining cosmic background radiation for any kind of communication pattern (which we might expect to if our universe was a simulation and the outer universe wanted to communicate with us).
And of course this ignores really really cool things like, basically anything and everything that would make colonizing Mars a reality (and that's an extremely broad category of stuff, actually, since "getting there" is really only the first problem among many).
Now, you might criticize my list as being arbitrary, and that some people would find "colonizing mars" about as yawn worthy as doing an ethnographic study on sociologists in the field. But frankly, I think that's silly. If popular entertainment is any measure of what the public finds inspiring, then exploration of space, genetics, AI, etc are all quite well-represented.
But why would they see this list in your proposed context? The list is not specifically intended for your theoretical audience, nor intended to contain your theoretical content, but you're railing against it like it is. If the article was entitled: "This article will inspire kids to do science", you might have a point. I will go further and argue that the type of youth reading Nature is actually probably going to be inspired by this article.
If you had wanted to discuss motivating kids into science, that's a great discussion to have, but inaccurately denigrating science/the article like this: 'I can't believe this is the what all of "science" achieved this year.' is probably not the most productive way to do it.
Science is very, very rarely inspiring. Most years, and heck most careers, don't produce big impressive breakthroughs. Success for most scientists means slightly pushing back the boundaries of the unknown within their narrow specialty.
Many kids want to be scientists, but the ones who make it through to become professional scientists as adults are the ones who are sufficiently self-motivated. It's a hard industry; the success to failure ratio is way way higher than in software development for instance.
historically, scientific advancement has come in intense bursts. not that i like the fact there are less exciting years, but it isn't really surprising that scientific advancement doesn't progress as a steady rate.
Borrowing from bacteria, a biologist helps to create a powerful tool for customizing DNA.
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2. TANIA SIMONCELLI: Gene patent foe
A US science-policy expert fought to keep genes open to all.
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3. DEBORAH PERSAUD: Viral victor
A virologist provides the strongest evidence yet that infants born with HIV can be cured.
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4. MICHEL MAYOR: In search of sister Earths
An astronomer with a flair for technology extends his legacy of discovery.
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5. NADEREV SAÑO: Climate conscience
After Typhoon Haiyan ravaged the Philippines, a diplomat focused the world’s attention — briefly — on global warming.
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6. VIKTOR GROKHOVSKY: Meteorite hunter
A Russian researcher tracked the debris from the biggest object to hit our planet in a century.
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7. HUALAN CHEN: Front-line flu sleuth
A virologist helped China to quell an outbreak of H7N9 avian flu in humans.
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8. SHOUKHRAT MITALIPOV: The cloning chief
After years of frustration, a biologist has finally developed a line of stem cells from a cloned human embryo.
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9. KATHRYN CLANCY: An eye on harassment
An anthropologist unearths disturbing trends in sexual assaults at field sites — and suspects she’s just scratching the surface.
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10. HENRY SNAITH: Sun worshipper
An energetic physicist pushes a promising solar-cell material into the spotlight.