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Students in introductory biology don't need to worry about meeting her standards anymore. LSU removed her from teaching, mid-semester, and raised the grades of students in the class. In so doing, the university's administration has set off a debate about grade inflation, due process and a professor's right to set standards in her own course.

To Homberger and her supporters, the university's action has violated principles of academic freedom and weakened the faculty.

“Many cases involve students who have experience in other countries’ educational and cultural environments where different referencing systems are used – or, indeed, where no referencing systems are used at all,” says Fisher who sits on the college’s board that judges plagiarism cases. “These candidates often have absolutely no intention to deceive. There are usually language difficulties involved.”

He remembers advising one student who was looking up the definition of “plagiarism” in their native language when he met them. “They had no idea that they had done something wrong,” he says.

"In today's world, most of the real danger has been eliminated for most of us," explains Ian Milham, Visceral's art director. "We don't regularly have life-threatening, adrenalin-raising experiences. These virtual, primal, visceral experiences help us get in touch with our inner instincts and survive something."

In seeking increasingly elaborate ways to scare us, Visceral has spent time examining exactly what makes us scared and how our brains process fear. "We've done research into the psychological underpinnings of horror and terror," says Milham. "Suggestive shapes, unnerving stimuli, and things like that are always on our mind as we develop the sets and pacing of Dead Space. Most of how effective a horror moment is comes through refining the rhythm. Keeping the player off-balance and constantly establishing and breaking rhythms is key."

"Our biggest asset regarding dread and fear is the player's imagination, so it's important to create spaces that allow the mind to fill in what the player can't see," says Ben Wanat, Visceral's senior production designer.

If I come across a person who seems to completely ignore the existence of apostrophes and capital letters and types things like "im an eagle and im typing with my talons, so dont make fun of me cuz this is hard," I like to imagine that they actually are an eagle typing with their talons.  It would be a hassle if you had to hop in the air and use your feet to karate-chop two keys simultaneously every time you wanted to use the shift key to make a capital letter.   Also, eagles lack manual dexterity, so I can understand why they'd want to leave out apostrophes.  Eagles are all about efficiency.  

The pressure to publish has created a ghostwriting boom. Nearly 1 billion yuan (more than $145 million) was spent on academic papers in China last year, up fivefold from 2007, a study by Wuhan University professor Shen Yang showed.

One company providing such a service is Lu's, in Liuzhou, a southern industrial city. His Lu Ke Academic Center boasts a network of 20 to 30 graduate students and professors whose specialties range from computer technology to military affairs.

Lu, a 58-year-old Communist Party member, is approached by clients through Internet chat programs. Most are college professors seeking promotions and students seeking help on theses. Once, 10 students from the same college class put in a collective request for him to write their papers, he said.

"Doing everything on your own, independently, should be possible in theory, but in reality it is quite difficult and one will always need some help," Lu said. "This is how I see it. I don't know if it is right."

Mirror neurons allow you to put yourself in another person’s shoes. Your brain says, in effect, “The same neurons are firing as when I move my hand, so I know what he is feeling and what he is up to.” In addition, neurons we might loosely call “touch mirror neurons” fire when you are touched or watch someone else being touched. That humans have these abilities made intuitive sense to Charles Darwin, who noted that when you watch a javelin thrower about to release the spear, your leg muscles flinch unconsciously and that when a child watches his mother use a pair of scissors, he clenches and unclenches his jaws in uncontrollable mimicry. In this phenomenon we see an evolutionary prelude to the ability to imitate and emulate—the basis of cultural transmission of knowledge.

The pressure to publish has created a ghostwriting boom. Nearly 1 billion yuan (more than $145 million) was spent on academic papers in China last year, up fivefold from 2007, a study by Wuhan University professor Shen Yang showed.

One company providing such a service is Lu's, in Liuzhou, a southern industrial city. His Lu Ke Academic Center boasts a network of 20 to 30 graduate students and professors whose specialties range from computer technology to military affairs.

Lu, a 58-year-old Communist Party member, is approached by clients through Internet chat programs. Most are college professors seeking promotions and students seeking help on theses. Once, 10 students from the same college class put in a collective request for him to write their papers, he said.

"Doing everything on your own, independently, should be possible in theory, but in reality it is quite difficult and one will always need some help," Lu said. "This is how I see it. I don't know if it is right."

It is hoped that interactions between staff and students via social networks such as FriendFeed will enhance the student experience, providing more regular feedback for their assessments. Academics will become more easily accessible on social networking sites, joining the online conversation, answering student queries and providing additional pointers leading to 'feed forward' from lectures as well as the traditional feedback, enhancing the discussion and development of students.