QUES: Mary loved walking through the woods with her dog, Max. Max and Mary would go on all sorts of adventures together. They really loved looking for blueberries together and then falling asleep next to each other in the tall grass. One day, as Mary was picking the blueberries, she turned around to find that Max was not there. She became worried and ran off to look for her dog. She looked in all of their favorite spots...next to the stream, in their secret hiding place behind the raspberry bushes, and even inside the old cabin that sat in the woods. But poor Max was nowhere to be found. Nonetheless, Mary would not give up. She kept looking and she found him not very far away. He had seen a squirrel and run to chase it. When Mary called Max's name he left the squirrel and happily returned to Mary, wagging his tail as he went.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: What are three of Max's favorite spots?

QUES: Representing yourself in court can be a tricky endeavor. There are confusing legal terms to learn, strict procedures to follow and volumes of case law that often need to be understood to prepare a case. Lake County officials and a private agency that assists indigent litigants in Illinois want to make the practice easier by creating a self-help center for people who choose to represent themselves in legal matters. The center, which will be housed in the law library at the main courthouse in Waukegan, could open later this summer. "I think it's going to be extremely helpful," Court Administrator Bob Zastany said. "There is a population out there that will take advantage of this resource." The self-help center will be the only one of its kind in the county. Only a few operate nationwide, officials said. The project is the work of Lake County circuit court officials and Prairie State Legal Services, a statewide agency with an office in Waukegan that provides information and legal assistance to poor and elderly Illinois residents. The organization has received a $25,000 grant from the Illinois Equal Justice Foundation, a nonprofit group that funds programs designed to increase access to legal information and assistance, to help pay for the effort. Prairie State will share the money with the county. The county's law library is on the first floor of the governmental center at 18 N. County St. The new self-help center will be designed to help litigants find the information they need to properly represent themselves in court, an undertaking that can be complicated and confusing. "Some people can do OK on their own, and some people can do OK with some help," said Linda Rothnagel, the managing attorney for Prairie State Legal Services. "But other people can't do it. It's not always easy." Self-representation is a right affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. The practice is far more common in civil matters than in criminal cases. In fact, self-represented litigants - formally called "pro se" in Latin, or "for oneself" - in criminal defenses are so rare that statistics about the practice generally are not kept, legal experts say.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: Which organization has received a $25,000 grant from the Illinois Equal Justice Foundation?

QUES: If you build a campfire, you start with a large stack of sticks and logs. As the fire burns, the stack slowly shrinks. By the end of the evening, all that is left is a small pile of ashes. What happened to the matter that you started with? Was it destroyed by the flames? It may seem that way. What do you think happened? The truth is that the same amount of matter still exists. The wood changed not only to ashes, but also to carbon dioxide, water vapor, and other gases. The gases floated off into the air, leaving behind just the ashes. Although matter was changed, it was not created or destroyed. Because the same amount of matter still exists, we can say that matter is conserved. You may wonder how it can be conserved if something is now missing? Assume you had measured the mass of the wood before you burned it. Assume you had also trapped the gases released by the burning wood and measured their mass and the mass of the ashes. What would you find? The ashes and gases combined have the same mass as the wood you started with. This example illustrates the law of conservation of mass.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: Ashes and gases in an example of what?

QUES: The inhabited history of the Las Vegas Valley stretches to 23,000 b.c. , when much of the area was covered by a prehistoric lake. During this period, the indigenous people lived in caves, hunting the mammals that gathered at the shoreline. The landscape of the valley changed dramatically over the next 200 centuries. The glaciers feeding the lake melted away and the lake evaporated. Fossils tell an obscure story of man's slow and sporadic development. Around 3000 b.c. , native Archaic Indians began to develop a lasting hunting and gathering culture. By this time, the valley was in much the same geographic state as it exists in today, with one exceptionthe presence of artesian springs that bubbled to the surface in several areas. These springs fed a network of streams draining through the Las Vegas Wash to the Colorado River. The areas surrounding the springs were desert oases: sprawling collections of grasses, trees, and wildlife. Many springs lay in areas that would eventually become the center of the modern Las Vegas metropolis. For about 4000 years, the Archaics thrived in a culture that included many signs of early civilization. Signs of even more advancement appeared halfway through the first millennium a.d. , when the Anasazi Indians inhabited the valley. Far more progressive than the Archaics, the Anasazi utilized such formal agricultural techniques as irrigation to assist their harvest. This permitted the Anasazi to achieve a benchmark of advanced societythe ability to live in permanent shelters year-round without need to follow wildlife. Mysteriously, the Anasazi vanished from the valley around a.d.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION:
When did the native Archaic Indians develop a hunting and gathering culture?