Something that hasn't been mentioned is access to tools. Brick and mortar universities have SEM and TEM microscopes, near state of the art computers, instruments, laboratories, etc. that most internet students can't access. Universities have access to databases of current journals, which are very expensive. Also, the universities have individuals (professors and fellow grad students) who have experience using those tools (how and when to calibrate them, how they can be used, etc.) that one learns over a second pitcher of beer. Access to information over the internet is so much better than it was even 10 years ago, but one still needs hands-on experience with the tools, which are first available at brick and mortar Universities, and possibly (if one is fortunate) later in industry. Bill Gates had, for his day, access a very good computer tool, and he used it to begin to get where he wanted to go.

I can't help thinking that this behavior is a repeat of TI's attempt to control the software market just as it did with the TI 994A, years ago (in 1979-81 for newbies). I hope this locking down their calculators is limited to the educational market.

Correction - the paint on homes is considered lead based paint if the house was built earlier than 1978. FWIW, lead based paint is considered 0.5% Pb or greater by weight and any paint with lesser quantities of lead is considered lead-containing paint. HUD housing regulations for lead paint kick in when children 0-6 are present, and OSHA considers any lead in paint to be covered by the lead exposure standard.

Actually, XRFs are commonly used by industrial hygienists to determine concentrations of lead (Pb) in lead paint. In fact, the new renovation, repair and paint (RRP) law that went into effect on April 22 assumes lead is in paint on homes built before 1981, unless the paint is measured to be less than 0.5% lead. The best way to do so (per EPA) is to use an XRF to determine whether lead is present or not, and what its concentration is. Alternatively, paint chips can be analyzed for lead in a laboratory; however, one can obtain 200-300 measurements for lead in a building with an XRF, whereas one may take 10-20 paint chip samples in the same time. What I'm guessing happened is than an IH used an XRF on a glass that his/her kid brought home from McDonalds and found some aberrant spectra - the IH took those readings further, and found the spectra matched cadmium. He/She then sent the glass with the readings to the Congresswoman. Given that cadmium has been substituted for lead in kid's toys, etc. (which was prohibited by law), and cadmium is considerably more toxic than lead, the Congresswoman had the glass tested, and the recall began.

Hey guys, biologists will tell you that a "species is what a taxonomist (person who studies it) says it is" There are folks who believe in "biological species - species separated because they can't interbreed (mostly zoologists), folks who believe in "morphological species" (often botanists - people who say a species is a species because it is visually distinct), folks who separate species because they are on separate land masses (Chinese and American Sycamores), chemically distinct species (some fruit fly species separated by scent), behaviorally distinct species (crayfishes), etc. The list goes on ---

removing asbestos from the Challenger O ring, and replacing it with a "safe" substitute

"Other kids got paid for making A's. If we didn't, we got to explain "Why Not?" My daughter was third in her class.

Hospice is a loving and caring way for helping the dying, and once an individual is admitted, many of the costs are absorbed by grants and government assistance there.

I am a scientist (Ph.D.). I have not met Dr. Lubchenco, but I know of her work through the journal, Limnology and Oceanography, and I was astonished that the Federal Government was able to recruit such an excellent person for herding cats in Washington. We will be well served.

Actually, using cyanobacteria can get around the scarce resource problem, because cyanobacteria are among the most efficient micro-organisms at growing in hypersaline, warm ocean (and salt flat) environments. In freshwater pond environments, one sees a progression of algae from diatoms (early in the growing season when the water's cold) to green algae, to cyanobacteria. Many researchers attribute this progression to the microcrustaceans' eating preferences, literally spitting out the cyanobacteria until everything else is eaten.

I have Vector Linux 3.2 installed on a Pentium 66. I split the (?1.2 gig) hard drive into two partitions, lap-linked the file (~320 meg) to the first dos partition, and used a Vector Linux boot disk to load the file and install it to the second partition. I have 16 megs of ram on the Pentium 66, so I think you install it successfully with your 486 system.

Do you have infinite patience?

My wife is also a graduate student taking online courses. When she found she could not access the lectures using Windows XP Pro (DRM problems per Firefox), I installed a dual boot system with Ubuntu on her computer, and then installed IE and Windows Media Player with Crossover Office. It works splendidly, and the Linux kernel isolates IE from malware. Of course, it is very easy to move screenshots, etc. from the Linux to the Windows partition.

The reverse happened to my wife. She is a student in Library Science at Wayne State University. They are also a "windows only" shop. When she went to access the lectures for the computer technology course using Windows XP Pro, she could not - IE went into a continuous loop, and Firefox reported that the lectures were not accessible because of DRM. We tried to access the lectures on 4 computers with Windows XP Pro, including two of our own, and two at the library where she works, without success. Finally, I dug a copy of Windows 2000 out, and the lectures came through. A short time later, I was able to access the lectures through IE running with crossover office on Ubuntu, and on Firefox (using Mplayer on Ubunt 8.10) without. Later, we also found the lectures came through with Windows XP home. My wife now looks at the lectures using Ubuntu, and then reboots into windows and does her work with (the required) Office 2007 there.

What he or she reads is just as important. For younger kids - The Book of Knowledge (if you can find it) has many "how to" articles. For older kids -a subscription to the Scientific American - Yes, it's high level - but a 9th grader can read at least some of it, and the ideas - the Amateur Scientist section of the 70's and 80's - led me to my present (scientific) career.