But the real lessons to take away from Enron and WorldCom are that financial reporting can never be an exact science, and that managers will be as greedy as they can get away with.

ECONOMIST: Enron: one year on

Last April, Hannifin even did a presentation on science toys to a special gathering of managers from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

FORBES: Toys Your Techie Friends Will Love

Mackay has weeded out middle managers so more scientists are doing science, and decision makers interact directly with them.

FORBES: Magazine Article

In addition to distorting salary structures elsewhere, the rewards that hedge-fund managers reap draw some of the very brightest science and mathematics graduates to the industry.

NEWYORKER: Mastering the Machine

He thinks that good managers may be at least as valuable as science and engineering graduates (though given where he works, perhaps he is talking his own book).

ECONOMIST: Economics focus

The sample comes from a hole about 2.5 inches deep drilled on Feb. 8 in a flat plate of sedimentary bedrock that the space agency managers have named "John Klein" in memory of a Mars Science Laboratory deputy project manager who died in 2011.

WSJ: Rover on Mars Extracts First Rock-Core Sample