Cure

Streets throughout Hunt Valley will be closed temporarily Sunday for the 20th Annual Susan G. Komen Maryland Race for the Cure. Baltimore County police are advising motorists and others to be prepared for detours and delays before, during and after the event. The event includes a 5K Run, a 5K Walk and a 1 Mile Family Fun Walk. The 5K race will start at 8 a.m. The 5K Walk and the 1 Mile Walk will start at 8:30 a.m. All three follow the same course. The entire event is expected to last about three and a half hours.

Singer Art Garfunkel, a real estate magnate and an investor are putting $2 million in gold bullion on the line to inspire researchers to cure blindness by 2020, establishing through Johns Hopkins Medicine one of the world's largest prizes for a scientific advancement. The men, one-time roommates at Columbia University, intend for the prize to trigger research into the variety of diseases that cause blindness — 80 percent of which are preventable — in 39 million people around the world.

A team of runners and walkers from Transformations Fitness for Women studios will participate in Sunday's Komen Maryland Race for the Cure, but their team will be much smaller than previous years. The fitness studio with three Baltimore area locations signed up 342 people to its team in 2011 and raised nearly $24,000. So far this year, 280 people have signed up, and they've raised about $16,000. Shelley Sharkey, who owns Transformations' Catonsville location, said the teams lost some runners this year because of a decision by the national Komen organization to stop funding social-services organization Planned Parenthood.

Days after undergoing gastric bypass surgery, Brenda Maker's diabetes was gone — her body producing enough of the hormone insulin to turn sugar into fuel. It's a phenomenon seen in recent years by doctors who increasingly are using the operation not only to help patients lose weight and improve their health generally but specifically to address the national epidemic of Type 2 diabetes. Now some researchers at the University of Maryland believe their work may explain why the surgery succeeds, and how a common drug may be used to induce similar effects.

NHL Capitals to open at home against Devils The Washington Capitals unveiled their regular-season schedule for 2012-13 on Thursday. It begins Oct. 12 at home against the New Jersey Devils at 7 p.m. Washington faces the other teams in the Southeast Division six times each and the remaining Eastern Conference opponents four times each. The Capitals play each team in the Western Conference at least once, with two games each against the Nashville Predators, Los Angeles Kings and Dallas Stars.

The number of Americans considered obese is expected to rise from the current 34 percent to 42 percent by the year 2030, according to a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine and discussed at Monday's "Weight of the Nation" conference in Washington. Diabetes, kidney failure, heart disease, and other obesity-related ailments account for countless premature deaths and as much as 18 percent of the $2.6 trillion national cost of medical care. The leading causes of obesity are consumption of fat-laden meat and dairy products and lack of exercise.

As Baltimoreans watch gas prices soar above $4, it's worth asking: why don't we have a better public transportation system? Do we lack the imagination? In decades past, we had the imagination to fund and build our port, our tunnels and bridges, and what is now BWI Thurgood Marshall airport. They're vital everyday elements of life in Maryland now, but they took conviction at the time to build. Today, our legislators need a similar conviction to fund and build the east-west Red Line transit project.

Few organizations have done more for women's healththan both Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a leading supporter of breast-cancer treatment and research, and Planned Parenthood, the country's top reproductive health care provider and advocate. To see the two organizations now at war is not only upsetting to many women's health supporters but all the more tragic because it's so unnecessary. The most charitable interpretation of events would suggest that Komen was duped by anti-abortion advocates into cutting off support for breast exams at Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country.

Nobody wants to hear about perspective at a time like this. It's just too soon. The disappointment is too raw. The Ravens will be watching the New England Patriots represent the AFC in the Super Bowl even though Joe Flacco outplayed Tom Brady and – for a split second – Lee Evans had his arms around the game-winning touchdown. This one's going to hurt for awhile. Just ask Billy Cundiff, who missed a short field goal in the final seconds that would have kept hope alive. There isn't going to be a Super Harbaugh Bowl in the backyard of the evil Indianapolis Colts or a rematch of the 2001 Super Bowl that has been the Ravens' calling card for too many years now. Owner Steve Bisciotti will to have to wait at least another 12 months to light up a big fat cigar and hoist his very own Lombardi Trophy.