There is established science on antibiotic resistance. Bacteria acquire DNA, via infection by viruses or by other means, and this genetic material is able to insert itself into the bacterial genome and code for proteins that confer resistance. But this is not *why*, it is how. Bacteria are infected by these viruses, so there is not a "why"-it is a random event. Does this answer your question?

Definitely hit the Walters and Baltimore Museum of Art as they are free. Check for times before you go as the Walters right now is only open ot hte public Wed-Sun. I second the recommendation for the American Visionary Art Museum (you can walk from Inner Harbor area). It is all art made by untrained artists and has some very interesting, unusual, and frankly weird and occasionally even disturbing art, but the great majority is really wonderful and not disturbing. IMO, the science center doesn't have much for kids in your age group. Aquarium is interesting, but very pricey. There are water taxis and foot paddle boats in the inner harbor itself. Yes to Fort McHenry. And BMA is not in downtown, it's next to the Hopkins undergraduate campus. Taxi or car needed. Sports fans? Camden Yards and Ravens stadium are right in downtown. Federal Hill is the neighborhood just south of inner harbor and has some interesting shops. Places of historical interest: Frederick Douglas house (in Fells Point), Poe gravesite near University of Maryland Hospital, Washington Monument. Consider: PUblic Works Museum (really-it is very interesting!), seeing Hopkins Hospital (like a city itself). One thing I am doing with my 13 yo soon is a buddy read of The Immortal Life of Henietta Lacks, then a tour of the places noted in the book like the huge statue of Jesus in the old front entry of Hopkins Hospital, Sparrows Point, and Turner Station.

One more FYI that I find interesting. There is a Bard Early College High School opening in my area this coming fall and I have suspected that the success of this Bard franchise is partly due to home schooling. My thinking is that more and more people are not seeing the point of the last couple of years of high school and there is a movement, at these Bard early college high schools, and of course amongst home schoolers, to CC level work in lieu of junior and senior year of high school.

I could probably write a book on this topic, but I'll try to answer more succinctly here : ) My oldest is a junior in college now and with him, I see the following: 1. He has had total confidence that he can find a way to learn something himself, if it is not fully absorbed in class. He does not hesitate to look into online sources and different texts from those the prof provides if he doesn't understand something. 2. He finds his schooled peers to often be more passive, and seek a less complete understanding of materials, than he does. I also have a child who is a senior in PS after home schooling grades 3-8. He has struggled most with organizational issues, deadlines, and social interaction. He often told me when he first started that school "felt like prison". Not sure why he insisted on staying, sigh, but there it is. He is...quirky...and that has NOT helped him socially at all, as you might imagine. On the one hand, I think he would have been even more quirky if he hadn't chosen school, on the other, he probably would have been much happier. His freshman year teachers all noticed how different he was, academically, from his peers, and some even complimented me. In fact, one teacher and parent of a very active 4 year old boy secretly confessed he was looking for a way to home school his children as he didn't think the school environment would be good for them. What they noticed was that he was more open, curious, and interested in discussion. Unfortunately, this did not necessarily translate to better academic performance, as he was completely clueless, and rather a slow learner, about what exactly is needed to do well in a school setting. I take responsibility for this, as I did not ever try to teach him organizational skills, time management, or how to study. No one taught me, I reasoned. Because my son is not receptive at all to coaching on academic matters, I was rather powerless to change the outcome once he was enrolled. So in his case, I would have relished taking a bigger role in his education, but he did not want me to, until he really crashed and burned. My take home lesson from this is to make it much clearer what our expectations are ahead of time, and what will happen if the child does poorly and cannot figure out how to turn himself around. I have a third child who is entering ninth grade in the fall and also wishes to go to school. I've spent far more time coaching him on organization, time management, study skills, and am able to farm some things out this year to prepare him. One aspect of conventional school that is definitely different from 10 years ago, IMO, is the availability of DE for students. In the rural town where I grew up, few, if any, APs are available. That is still the case, but now students can DE in a community college junior and senior year if they choose. I strongly suspect home schooling encouraged this trend. I also am aware of a self-paced math program for gifted students in my local K-8 school. Ditto for that. Why not extend it to all students?? The last place where I've seen the imprint of home schooling is in the pricey private schools in my area, where enrollment is slipping and they are sometimes making overt outreach into the home school community to try to win back some of the families that have opted to educate their own children rather than pay $$$ to have someone else do it. Finally, I would just say that I felt pretty powerless when my sons were in school. I think that our public schools are not very receptive to parental input and frankly 99% of communications from the school have been about administrative issues, not my child's academic performance or, God forbid, his well-being.

They can, but this does not sound typical.

At my son's school, they do placement on a case by case basis. He took AP calc BC junior year and got a 5 on the exam. Then he spent a year outside the US as an exchange student, and took a university course in discrete math, and a one semester CTY course in Linear Algebra. He did not get A's in either. After meeting with a math professor before freshman year (over the phone) he elected to take Honors Calculus 1. It was an easy A but it also allowed him to pursue an Honors degree in math, which he ended up choosing as his major. So it worked out OK. He is glad he had the exposure to more advanced topics in high school, but he did not get a good, college-level exposure to Linear Algebra, and he found "real" calculus in college to be quite different from the AP treatment of the topic. ETA: so IMO it depends. I honestly think that any student other than a math major would not have benefitted from doing what ds did.

This is not a policy, per se, but it is a story of research that led to a set of policies enacted globally that have saved millions of lives: http://water.jhu.edu/magazine/wolmans/ Abel Wolman and Linn Enslow developed the formula for addition of chlorine to drinking water to make it safe for human consumption. Few 20th century people, or policies, can have saved more lives. I think your daughter would have to find a local or EPA policy that codifies his work, but I think that wouldn't be too difficult.

momee said: "Now that he is gone :( I am like the prodigal's father wanting to throw a party when he comes home to visit and we hug each other for a long time EACH time we see each other because we both know we walked through some pretty tough junk together and made it to the other side. He leaves repeating I love you Momma at least three times. I can't help but think I did something right in the midst of all that, and that is where the real PRIZE is... Hang in, realize your reaction is what will stay with him. Try in those tense moments to remain calm, not engage when he is angry, be hopeful that he will get it, and ferociously be his advocate. As difficult as it seems, your best ally will be to put aside the personal digs and daggers (and they will come). I had a VERY emotionally unstable mother who parented using guilt, screaming and physical violence as motivators so I speak from experience. NOT healthy. I say all this knowing what it's like to have knock down drag out fights and kids who slam doors, walk out and embarrass the heck out of you. I say it all knowing the truth that one day this youngster who thinks he knows it all will be a man with a family thanking you for loving him and not keeping records of wrongs (not holding his sins against him-and who needs that anyway?) - and extending grace (giving what he does not deserve) at the moment he most needs it. I know this also because my husband is such a man and his mother who walked through waaaay worse than I did with him now lives with us. Their relationship is sooo special and tender (I think partly because of it all and the example of restoration they are to each other.)" Now I say: Quoting because liking is not enough. I used to feel real despair at my son's awful, even troubled, disturbed, behavior. I felt like the worst parent in the world. I don't think I stood by him, and advocated for him, as much as I could have, but, he**, I quit my job and totally rearranged my life to home school and supervise him, and our story is much like what you describe. I was so distracted by his horrible behavior, and I took it so personally (really, who wouldn't), that it was impossible for me to imagine a good outcome. Yet, he really loves me, and is doing OK. He is still finishing growing up, but I can see now that his behavior was too much of a focus for me and he really, in his heart, was always a good kid. I would never advocate stepping back...what I needed to do, if I did anything differently, was to be MORE involved and advocate for him more. Live and learn.

I have soooo BTDT. And I want to reassure you that you are not responsible for this....or at least, I hope *I* was not responsible for it when it was my son!! In his case, I think it was probably more ADD than anything else, and the interesting thing is that he has done fairly well in college. I want to point out that I don't think that taking a year off would have helped him, because he still struggles to meet deadlines, to stay on top of everything, and to get enough sleep. But another year would have made no difference in those problems. I think you have to use your knowledge of your own child to try to understand the best way to proceed. We have another kid who is 18 now and IMO is NOT ready for college. We are very strongly encouraging him to take a year off.

If you consider the incredible power that the large US corporations hold, then it seems that allowing public opinion via social media is quite fair. It is a democritizing force. Large corporations can use their deep pockets to keep consumers from pursuing justice in court and to influence elections in their favor. Social media eliminates some of this power differential. Of course their will be cranks who use social media unfairly, and I don't know exactly how to address this problem, except as others have pointed out, that lone cranks will eventually be drowned out. I don't think that the existence of cranks is a reason not to use social media, as a last resort, to pursue justice.

He invented Kinder Eggs!

I am lucky that, having no daughters, I never had to deal with this. And I very likely would help a daughter in this situation. But your question makes me remember this internet story, that I will never, ever forget: http://jezebel.com/5946643/reddit-users-attempt-to-shame-sikh-woman-get-righteously-schooled Her courage, kindness to her tormentors, their contrition...it is too good a fairy tale not to take notice. I've read this to my kids and discussed it many times.

Antique ipads!!! Wow!!

I've only got one so far (next one is 18 and definitely knows everything right now) who is grown, but he made me very happy last fall when he told me he hoped he could find a way to home school his own children! One accomplishment I am very happy about is that his biggest complaint about conventional school (where he did spend a few years) is how science is taught. Ha! Not what you'd expect. But all the work I put into home science experiments was worth it. He also says that he learned a LOT of science that he still remembers from his third grade teacher, who had a huge quantity of hands on materials in her classroom and even a library of science kits that she allowed students to sign out and take home.

Math, music and linguistics come to mind first. And computer science!

I read the entire article. Wow. I had no idea. My first impulse is to think-yeah-she said and did something very foolish, and paid an exorbitant price for it. I don't think anyone deserves such a disproportionate degree of punishment. But, my sympathies for someone who makes a living as a PR person, who is basically well-paid to influence public opinion, are fairly limited. First, IMO, it's a profession with minimal true value to improving the human condition, and often, considerable harm. Second, it's really hard to believe that someone whose job it is to shape public opinion would be so remarkably ignorant about...the power of public opinion. Third, the guy who not only propagated the initial tidal wave, but kindly came back to shame her publicly *again* may get his comeuppance. That day probably cannot come soon enough. I will definitely be showing this to my kids!

Our house is 98 years old-built in 1917. It is a "folk Victorian" without fancy details or gingerbread. It originally was heated with wood or coal most likely, and has a boiler from the 1940's when street delivery of gas first became available in our neighborhood-or so our plumber tells us.

I won't comment specifically on the issue of learning the OT books, but I think that in general what you are trying to do in such a situation is to emotionally support your child without supporting his whining and childish attempts to avoid something. So I think if I was faced with this exact situation, I would tell him we'll come back to it, because it's important, but for now we'd work on memorizing shorter things first. Then I would work on memory work in general, work on the character issues involved (whining), and come back in a few weeks with songs and a firm resolve. I had to do this a lot with one ds when we did math. He cried and shut down often, and we just had to stay the course, gently, with support, but we had to keep at it. He is 13 now and taking algebra, and handling it fine. But math was his nemesis for many years.

Our go to funny audiobook was Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl. It is funny retellings, in verse, of well-known fairy tales. Years later, my boys can still quote lines from those. "Mum! Behold the prickles in my bum!"-the reader's crisp British accent is perfect.

Two of my three have been through this already and neither of them showed much interest at all in the process. As a result, we visited few schools. IMO, they were probably both hurt by this and by their lack of interest in the process in general. So not only did they not visit, they spent little or no time on the websites, did not seek out other sources of info, etc. Sigh.

I think it is a very difficult question to answer. My own college choice was completely dictated by finances. I was not happy there, but got a good education and I was not completely miserable, it just wasn't a great fit for me. My oldest overshot the mark and wasn't admitted to any of the schools he really loved-he ended up at his safety with a very nice merit package. He has been very happy there and would be the first person to tell you that he did not 1) start off there with a positive attitude 2) have an accurate impression of the place at all before he went there. I would not stint on a school my child really loved, IF I could afford it, which hopefully, I can. From the child's perspective, I can say honestly that it stinks to know you have no choices, and having them for our kids is the privilege of what dh and I have worked so hard for all our lives. OTOH, it is definitely true that a kid may not have a clear impression of a place before they actually are a student there.

No, does not bother me. Often, I'm relieved! What does that say about me!

One more thought: you have four boys ages 0-10. I was once in a similar spot, with a part time job added to the mix. I tried to see it as a season of life, but I also *really* desperately needed some time to myself. It took a number of pointed, even desperate conversations for me to get this point across. I would encourage you to force the issue of getting some time ALONE, just in order to write up a list of your needs! Then you can begin to negotiate for what you need. Because speaking from experience here...the demands change over time, but if you become the person who "does everything" you will continue to be that person forever. Mission creep maybe, but still it amounts to continued loss of your own needs. Don't settle for that.

I am in a somewhat similar situation, in that I do a lot, alone. In my experience, men like your dh are not capable of changing on a dime, so you may have to cope with this vacation by just getting through it. BUT. Part of the dynamic is your introversion and reluctance to say no. I think that now, or in time, part of what will need to change is your willingness to let things stay as they are. As in, learning to assert yourself without losing it, and learning to speak your mind about your needs. There's no time like the present!

Bought a piece of maple butcher block for a section of our new kitchen's counter and it is beautiful. But yes, I would recommended buying extra flooring to cover future needs.