"If you feel stress—and we all do, and sometimes it's positive—say it to somebody. Find a friend. Talk to your research supervisor or any faculty member. Anybody, just so it doesn't build inside."

BRUCE WOOLEY, chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering, at the start of a lecture to students on circuit design on the day the body of Mengyao "May" Zhou was found in the trunk of her car, the victim of an apparent suicide. Zhou was a doctoral student in electrical engineering.

San Jose Mercury News, Jan. 28.

"This is all about communication. It's not a complicated concept but it's astonishing how rare it is in our society. In every situation I've seen, there's a lack of communication, no way for someone to share their hopes and aspirations on the positive side, or their worries and troubles on the negative side."

WILLIAM DAMON, director of the Center on Adolescence, on how teens' code of silence keeps them from signaling trouble. Damon, who is often asked to help communities following trauma, was reacting to the recent stabbing death of a 15-year-old by a classmate in a school bathroom in the Boston area.

Boston Globe, Jan. 24.

"The goal almost certainly cannot and will not be met."

DAVID VICTOR, law professor, reacting to President Bush's plan, announced during his State of the Union speech, to increase renewable fuels production fivefold by 2017. The bulk is expected to come from ethanol—the centerpiece of a proposal to reduce gasoline consumption and make the U.S. less dependent on Middle Eastern oil.

St. Louis Post Dispatch, Jan. 25.

"I cannot emphasize enough how critical a factor that is for California's agriculture. In California, if you don't give it sufficient irrigation water, it's not viable as a crop."

CHRIS FIELD, professor of biological sciences, on how climate models that project a 30- to 90-percent decrease in the Sierra snowpack by 2100 will affect agriculture. The snowpack acts as California's biggest reservoir, storing about 40 percent of the state's water that is released slowly as the snow melts each spring. California is by far the nation's largest agricultural producer, and about 90 percent of its crops are irrigated.

San Jose Mercury News, Jan. 24.