Cells

The death of a convicted murderer from Columbia who was found bloodied in his prison cell last month was ruled a homicide by strangulation in an autopsy report, Maryland State Police said Wednesday. Charles David Richardson IV, 28, who was sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars for murdering two people in Columbia in 2007, was found under a blanket in his cell bed with trauma to his head on the morning of Sept. 27, police said. Guards at the North Branch Correctional Institution in Cresaptown had rushed into his cell about 5 a.m. after observing his cellmate "in possession of clothing that appeared to be bloodstained" outside the cell on an upper-level tier, police said at the time.

After Vince McMahon gave CM Punk the ultimatum of John Cena or Ryback as his Hell in a Cell opponent last week, one of the fine people I follow on Twitter alluded to it being a choice between "the devil Punk knows and the devil he doesn't know. " On tonight's edition of Raw, Punk himself used those very words when addressing the crowd. It was a clever tie-in with the pay-per-view poster that depicts Punk as a devil himself. Punk's desire to toy with the crowd cost him, though, as Vince McMahon told him he was taking too long to decide, and that McMahon would make the choice for him later in the show.

With plenty of evidence to refute the need to spend millions to build a jail for juveniles, it would not be far-fetched to expect Gov. Martin O'Malley to instead focus his attention - and our state's precious resources - on projects that prevent youth from engaging in crime. Sadly, that would be a mistake. Recently, Governor O'Malley decided to double-down on the misguided plan to spend more than $70 million building a youth detention facility in Baltimore that studies show is not needed and could ultimately end up being a colossal waste of taxpayer funds.

Aging baby boomers are increasingly turning to testosterone prescriptions in a bid to stay healthy and boost their vitality. But the therapy has some health risks for men. Recently, scientists at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have been exploring how stem cells can be used to regenerate testosterone in aging men, without their having to resort to testosterone injections. "We're trying to understand whether you can prevent [diminishing testosterone], whether you can reverse that," said Dr. Barry Zirkin, a Hopkins researchers who has co-developed a new way to activate stem cells in the testes that, in turn, form the cells that produce testosterone.

A 28-year-old Columbia man sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison for murdering two people in Howard County in 2007 was found dead and bloodied in his Allegany County prison cell early Thursday morning, according to Maryland State Police. Charles David Richardson IV, who was known as "Face" when he was arrested in May 2007 in the murders of an acquaintance and a 7-Eleven clerk, was found about 5 a.m. under a blanket in his cell bed with trauma to his head, police said. Guards at the North Branch Correctional Institution in Cresaptown rushed into his cell after observing his cellmate "in possession of clothing that appeared to be bloodstained" outside the cell on an upper-level tier, police said.

Stem cells from newborns appear to have a much greater ability to restore heart function than adult stem cells, according to a new study from University of Maryland School of Medicine researchers who were looking for ways to mend children's broken hearts. It was the first study to compare the regenerative abilities of the stem cells. And the lab and animal studies showed a three-fold ability of newborn cells to restore heart function. The study is published in the September 11 issue of Circulation . “The surprising finding is that the cells from neonates are extremely regenerative and perform better than adult stem cells,” said the study's senor author Dr. Sunjay Kaushal, associate professor of surgery at Maryland and director of pediatric cardiac surgery at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

Two women and a man from Baltimore were each sentenced Monday to life plus at least 20 years in prison for conspiring to murder another man after a dispute over a missing cell phone, according to the city state's attorney's office. The 2010 dispute left 28-year-old Isiah White fatally shot in the back and chest, prosecutors said. It also left two lifelong best friends on either end of the gun violence. White's girlfriend, Crystal Froneberger, had just left a downtown nightclub with her sister, Tiffany, and two friends, Kaia Ray and Nicole Ray, in the early morning hours of Sept.

It's a common refrain in Gia D'Anna's office: Extra inches that childbirth or time left around the middle are resisting diet and exercise. D'Anna is the office manager for a Lutherville plastic surgeon, and, as a mother, she sympathizes with the patients. She just got her own flat tummy back last year. Her boss, Dr. Ronald H. Schuster, had bought a machine that aimed to zap muffin tops and love handles via low temperatures. He was looking for volunteers on the staff before he rolled out the service to patients.

Sharon Johnson is not a physician or scientific researcher. She has never been trained as a nurse. Her most recent prior occupation was as office manager in a dental practice. Yet colleagues say she's a bundle of compassion, a quick study and a genius at communicating with people of all backgrounds — all qualities that have made her a key player in iHOMES, a Johns Hopkins-based network of health care providers who are dedicated to mobilizing every possible resource in the fight against sickle cell disease.

For men and women attempting to lose those last few pounds, surgery may not be an option. Earlier this year, Dr. Eric Chang of Columbia Aesthetic Plastic Surgery began offering “CoolSculpting,” which he describes as a safe, noninvasive alternative to liposuction. “It is so popular because everyone is looking for something with no downtime for recovery and without the risk of surgery,” he says. During the treatment, a specially designed device takes the targeted fat tissue between cooling panels for a process called cryolipolysis to freeze fat cells.