Just to be clear though, despite what the lede of this New York Times article says, this engine block was NOT checked in and carried onto the plane. The photo shown was part of a social media stunt to demonstrate how compact and light the engine is. It never went past the security checkpoint. 
http://jalopnik.com/5961187/ford-built-an-engine-so-small-they-were-able-to-send-it-through-airport-security

Aside from that, getting so much power and torque out of such a tiny engine that also meets emissions standards and gets great fuel economy is a pretty impressive feat of engineering. 

Conservatives in America are not generally supportive of broad publication as a whole and tend to be particularly opposed to in-depth science education. Texas and other states don't want to teach kids to question what they are told and questioning everything is at the heart of science. I don't feel particularly optimistic about the future of humanity as long as we have these kinds of attitudes toward education.