With my team down twelve runs, I still felt compelled to attempt a running catch with my back to the infield. Our center fielder never heard me call for it. As I dove, my foot was caught under his sliding legs. There was enough momentum and leverage to snap both my fibula and tibia. The cracking sound carried to a second floor balcony, and from there a spectator called an ambulance. 

The hurtful jolt and the sensation of a dangling foot prevented me from holding on to the ball.

When I was a teenager, my father would sooner believe that I was an incompetent lawn mower than even entertain the possibility that I was motivated to preserve what he considered weeds, those suburban symbols of lassitude and irresponsibility.

Grade inflation is common. It knows no borders, occurring in public and private schools, at the elementary level and in Ivy League universities. It is a serious problem, and yet I have rarely heard a frank and open discussion about the matter.  Here's an insider's look at both the consequences and causes.

A- The Consequences Of Grade Inflation

Unlike the alkaloids morphine and codeine, which are also found in the opium poppy, noscapine is not an addictive analgesic. A close look at its structure reveals why: although a tertiary nitrogen is present, the molecule contains neither a quaternary carbon (a carbon attached to four carbons) nor its associated stereochemistry. 

Although some of these tricks may seem obvious or perhaps even border on the ridiculous, they all work as money-savers and are reminders of key concepts in everyday science.