The blogosphere is a quiet presence; so a moment of silence for Annie Le isn't the best way to honor her memory.  We all know people like her, or were like her ourselves:  a graduate student just settling in to her dissertation research, with so many plans for her future- her future career, her future with her fiance, her future with her friends.  She was just going about a normal day, carrying on research, and was tragically, brutally silenced forever.

What we can do to honor Annie is to educate.  Educate the public as to the difference between a PhD student and a Med student.  Educate the public as to the reality of life in a research lab:  the research might be 'cutthroat' but that isn't quite as violent as it sounds. Many of us are open and collaborative, not closed and secretive. Educate the public that most students have very healthy normal relationships with their professors.  Educate the press that women can be professors too, and we don't all look like the nerds from Revenge of the Nerds.  Educate the press to the fact that Annie was a very typical graduate student; attractive, vivacious, stylish. Let us not be quiet, let us be heard.

And we can pray that the guilty person is brought to justice quickly.