Contents for March 5-11, 1999

• At their recent monthly meeting, faculty members voted to eliminate a long-standing medical degree requirement after School of Medicine officials described it as unfair to learning-disabled students and unnecessary.

• The Web Advisory Committee is expanding to 13 members to take on challenges unimagined when Brown's first home page debuted in 1994.

• Cities nationwide have dedicated considerable public resources to lure high-tech industries. Now researchers at Brown have found that many site-selection factors which are crucially important to highly mobile computer companies may be beyond the control of city planners.

• In an attempt to settle a controversy with molecular geneticists about the date of species origins, paleontologists have produced a new study showing that the fossil record can be tested to see how completely it preserves records of the species that were alive at the time.

• A Department of Defense grant of $1 million per year for three years will allow Brown researchers to lead a five-university project designed to produce computer-based "virtual" tools for studying advanced materials used in jet engines and launch vehicles.

• At the halfway point of their walk across the United States, recent Brown grads Ryan Firestone and Gidon Felson prepare for what they think will be greater challenges as water becomes scarce and the distances between towns greater.

• The Resource, a monthly newsletter from Human Resources. (Only in the paper edition of the George Street Journal.)