Mary Hopkins, 36, will soon graduate with a math doctorate from Florida Atlantic University, one of five math PhDs expected to go to the largest class of women in the school’s history. She also will be the first black woman to earn a doctorate in math from FAU and only the third among all state universities since at least 1990.

“I just had very encouraging teachers. I’ve heard of math teachers not encouraging females, especially minorities, but all of my professors are so great, and they’re all old white men,” said Hopkins, who spent a full hour last week working out a lengthy math question in front of her classmates and professors.

FAU will award four other women with math PhDs: Bashak Ay, Marcela Chiorescu, Zhihua Liu and Viktoria Villanyi. FAU math administrators said they didn’t do anything special to recruit more women into their doctoral program and believe there’s a natural increase of women studying math as traditional stereotypes fall away.

Abraham K. Biggs, a 19-year old member of Bodybuilding.com — screen name: Candy Junkie, purposely overdosed on pills while streaming a video of himself live on Justin.tv. He left a virtual suicide note on Bodybuilding.com, which was removed once he was found dead.

He committed suicide by taking pills, turning on his webcam and lying on his bed. Moderators at Bodybuilding.com did not take him seriously because he had made similar threats in the past. Several forum members even encouraged him to kill himself. After several hours, viewers realized he wasn’t joking and called the police who found a dead body and shut off the webcam.

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