Bald

Visit these Web sites to find the answers, then go to www.4Kids.org/detectives/. * What are the building blocks of molecules? * What is the word for a score of zero in tennis? * Before 1993, when had a Serpent Eagle last been seen? FLY LIKE AN EAGLE Around the world, eagles are admired for their power, freedom and the beauty of their flight. Learn more about these awe-inspiring birds at Eagles, a Nature program by PBS. Fly away to www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/eagles/index.html and get to know these "masters of the sky."

NEWCASTLE, Maine - Just as we arrive, a pair of media-savvy eaglets enter on cue, soaring and screaming above us. They show little of the majesty that has made bald eagles such an impressive national symbol. They are just a pair of full-sized adolescents, pushed out by their parents and protesting the end of their free lunch. Charles Richards, who lives here, is used to his noisy tenants. Though it must be said that these birds have no respect for private property, eagles and Mr. Richards have coexisted comfortably for decades.

JACKSONVILLE, FLA. -- At 6 in the morning, the house is dark, and the only person awake is a 12-year-old girl too excited to sleep. She wades through a pile of clothes on the floor and checks her hair in the mirror. School is out for Christmas break, so she eats sour cream-and-onion potato chips and drinks a Coke for breakfast, turns the TV on without asking and slowly begins to brush her hair. It tumbles over her shoulders, spills down her back and shines auburn in the light.

A few weeks ago, while checking reports of schooling hickory shad at the Deer Creek Bridge on Stafford Road, I was pleasantly surprised to see the return of two old friends, a pair of bald eagles.They were perched atop their huge nest, which they carefully built among the branches of a mature oak nearly three years ago. In March 1989, an army of bird watchers, armed with spotting scopes, cameras, telephoto lenses and binoculars, swarmed to the site and watched for several weeks as the eagles transformed hundreds of sticks into a nest measuring nearly 6 feet in diameter.

IT'S TIME ONCE AGAIN for our popular consumer health feature, "You Should Be More Nervous."Today we're going to address an alarming new trend, even scarier in some ways than the one we discussed several years ago concerning the danger of airplane toilets sucking out your intestines (if you had forgotten about that one, we apologize for bringing it up again, and we ask you to please put it out of your mind).We were made aware of this new menace when alert reader Edna Aschenbrenner sent us an item from an Enterprise, Ore., newspaper called the Wallowa County Chieftain.

Hairstylist Reggie Dowdy has found himself time and time again doing emergency hair repair on women whose tresses have been damaged by weaves and extensions. They come in with bald spots, also known as alopecia, and thinning hair caused by heavy weaves pulling at their scalps. Sometimes their real hair is so unkempt underneath the weave that it becomes matted and breaks off if they try to comb it. Or they break out in rashes because of the glue some stylists use to apply weaves. Dowdy doesn't oppose weaves and extensions — the hair practice makes up 50 percent of the business at his salon, Geometrics Hair Studio in Canton.

In 1958, the Baltimore Colts licked the New York Giants for the National Football League title, and Americans licked the 3-cent stamp for the last time as full first-class postage. Or so they thought.Now, 36 years later, the U.S. Postal Service has resurrected the stamp for a limited run.On Jan. 1, at 12:01 a.m., the cost of sending a first-class letter jumps to 32 cents.What happens to the millions of 29-cent stamps left in our desks? A slew of 3-cent stamps -- two billion in all -- have been issued to make up the difference.

You could drive to a fish market or stop at a roadside stand to pick up a few dozen steamed crabs, or maybe a bushel. But then you'd miss the tranquility that comes from bobbing in silky-smooth back waters, the sound of bass leaping to catch low-flying bugs, the sight of great blue herons and bald eagles sweeping the sky to begin their search for the first meal of the day. And you'd miss the satisfaction that comes from baiting a line and...

The day a bad relaxer product burned unsightly bald patches into Kym Williams' hair seemed to her at the time to be the end of the world. But it actually turned out to be the beginning of a new life. After the chemicals burned her hair and scalp seven years ago, Williams -- now the author of a new book, The Art of Wig Design -- went on a fruitless quest for a stylish, natural-looking wig to cover her suddenly patchy head. "I was in a state of depression. It was horrible. My self-esteem was gone," says Williams, 38. "And I couldn't find a wig that looked natural anywhere.

He never knew the Mounties were watching.The bald, bearded man in the tweed jacket followed his weekly circuit through Windsor, Ontario. He stopped at the National Bank of Canada, walked two blocks to the Royal Bank of Canada and then caught a bus headed for the border.Tipped off by the Mounties, U.S. Customs agents in Detroit pulled him aside. In the pockets of his sports coat, they found envelopes bulging with twenties, fifties, hundreds. The man had claimed to be carrying $4,300. Instead, agents counted $73,225.