For me, Christmas sometimes comes twice a year. The release of the National Science Foundation’s biennial quantitative data report to Congress on the state of American science, engineering, and technology, The Science and Engineering Indicators (SEI), made 2014 one of those years. This year, the SEI has mostly good news about public attitudes and American’s understanding of science and technology. Good enough, I think, to merit sharing here. For starters, Americans seem to be getting a bit more science news in their lives. For example, the number of minutes of annual nightly weekday television newscast airtime devoted to science, space, and technology has averaged about 2% of broadcast network (ABC, CBS, and NBC) news between 2000 and 2012, but crept up above 3% in the most recently reported data. (read more...)