, San Francisco Chronicle

A quick primer on asthma:What is asthma?Asthma is a lung disease that occurs when the airways are inflamed. The inflammation causes the airways of a person with asthma to be sensitive to irritants. An asthma attack occurs when the airways close up, making breathing difficult.What are the symptoms?

Stanford provided these hypothetical examples to help illustrate the impact of some of the changes to its financial aid program. In each of these cases, none of the families has assets of more than $20,000 beyond their homes.

(YOU'VE GOT MAIL: DELUXE EDITION. 1998. RATED PG. WARNER BROS. $19.98)This light romantic comedy -- the third pairing of Tom Hanks with Meg Ryan -- is predictable but totally charming, thanks to the charisma and chemistry of its two stars.

Protecting against these new computer viruses, which so far are aimed at PCs running Windows, is hard -- and sometimes impossible.Updated antivirus software works unless the malware writers get ahead of the antivirus vendors, which is what happened with the new Trojan. Computer Associates, for example, just began protecting against it last week.

(I COULD NEVER BE YOUR WOMAN. 2007. PG-13. WEINSTEIN CO. $24.95)

Rat-related groups and music:1. Boomtown Rats2. RatDog3. The Rat Pack4. "Muskrat Love," by Captain & Tennille5. "Hot Rats," by Frank Zappa6. Ratt7. The Swamp Rats8. Rat Scabies (stage name of Christopher Miller, drummer for the Damned)

In honor of the Year of the Rat, which begins Thursday, a look at some of film's best rat moments:1. "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade": The rats used in the famous sewer sequence were a combination of mechanical rodents and real animals. Indy's dad (played by Sean Connery) has a serious rat phobia.

The best rat quotes of the movies:1. "Not mouse, never mouse. If anything, rat!" -- Bette Davis as Margo Channing in "All About Eve"2. "That's not a rat. That's my ferret." -- Jennifer Aniston as Polly in "Along Came Polly"3. "The rat rules!" -- Templeton in "Charlotte's Web"

(SAWDUST AND TINSEL. 1953. NOT RATED. THE CRITERION COLLECTION $39.95)

(IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT: 40TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTOR'S EDITION. 1967. NOT RATED. UNITED ARTISTS. $19.98)To understand the importance of this melodrama, you have to know that it was made only two years after the infamous "Bloody Sunday" incident in Selma, Ala., in which police brutally attacked civil rights marchers.