Descent

GREENBELT -- A spidery robot named Dante began inching its way down into an Antarctic volcano yesterday in a daring New Year's display of technology delayed earlier by cold weather and an unexpected eruption.But a computer glitch at the project's base camp brought Dante to a halt after the vehicle had traveled only about 21 feet. The setback dampened the initial excitement over the descent."Everybody watching it here is real excited," said Randee Exler, a spokeswoman at the Goddard Space Flight Center where scientists gathered to watch TV pictures transmitted by the robot.

Dr. Ben Carson got a tough lesson in the past week on how quickly the angry and divisive world of cable TV can chew you up. The 61-year-old Baltimore County resident has been in the media spotlight as a darling of the right since early February, when he addressed the National Prayer Breakfast with what some interpreted as a lecture to President Barack Obama. But last week, Carson's TV image and the discussion about him shifted dramatically - for the worse. He became engaged in a TV discussion on race that included back-and-forth name calling - and he offered a critique on same-sex marriage that included such extreme rhetoric that he now has Johns Hopkins colleagues calling him out and medical students petitioning to have him removed as a graduation speaker in May. Most of it played out before millions on highly partisan Fox News, where he has recently been treated like a member of the home team.

The Descent is the most exhilaratingly horrifying movie to come out in years, a squirm-inducing exercise in terror that relentlessly preys on one of the most basic human fears, the fear of being trapped. Writer-director Neil Marshall has such a firm grasp of what scares us, and translates that knowledge to the screen so expertly, that it's almost possible to overlook the ill-conceived excesses of the film's second half, where it stops just short of devolving into yet another splatter-fest.

Each week, The Sun's John McIntyre presents a moderately obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar — another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word: CONSANGUINITY If you were mildly alarmed to learn that Baron and Baroness Carrickfergus — all right, all right, William and Kate — are 12th cousins, the issue you had in mind would have been consanguinity. Consanguinity (pronounced kahn-san-GWIN-uh-tee) is descent from the same ancestor.

NEW YORK -- When the New Year's ball descends in Times Square tonight, it will be for the second time this week. The first was a practice ceremony yesterday supervised by Tama Starr, the timekeeper for the event.Starr, president of Artkraft Strauss Sign Corp., is following in the footsteps of her grandfather Jacob Starr, who built the first New Year's ball in 1908. She will repeat the performance tonight.The ball is operated by a line and pulleys, and Starr is assisted by a crew including two electricians, two sign hangers and a sheet-metal worker.

PARIS -- President Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled a streamlined Cabinet of historic diversity and ideological scope yesterday, appointing leftists, centrists, an unprecedented number of women and France's first powerful minister of North African descent. The center-right president had raised expectations by promising that his government would be run by a talented "dream team," breaking down barriers of gender, ethnicity and party politics. Yesterday, Sarkozy named seven female ministers, an unprecedented portion of the Cabinet, which he cut from 30 to 15 ministries.

The tensest moments of the shuttle Discovery's high-stakes mission should start around 3:45 a.m. tomorrow, when the spacecraft is slated to break orbit and begin brushing the uppermost molecules of the Earth's atmosphere. This is the part of the flight when the shuttle gradually ceases to be a spacecraft and becomes something even more precarious - a hypersonic glider, subject to unimaginable stresses and temperatures as high as 3,000 degrees. Air rushes by at speeds up to 27 times the speed of sound, so fast that it is not merely wind but a chemical reactant, breaking down into atoms as it smashes against the ship in a process that can increase heating.

GAP, France - Lance Armstrong is easily bored, so he likes to mix it up in his winter off-season training. He plays tennis. He hikes in the Texas Hill Country. More than once, he has entered a casual race near his hometown of Austin called the "Dirty Duathlon," pounding through two 3-mile runs and a 12-mile mountain bike course, splashing through mud and over tree roots. Though Armstrong couldn't have known it, those off-road skills would come in handy yesterday, as he had to bushwhack his way across a field to avoid serious injury - his second near miss in this demolition derby of a Tour de France.

An article in yesterday's editions of The Sun on relations among black, Hispanic and Asian-Americans should have stated that there are two Californians of Asian descent in the House of Representatives. They are Robert T. Matsui and Norman Y. Mineta, Democrats, both of Japanese descent.The Sun regrets the errors.

It was incorrectly reported in yesterday's editions that Woods is the first minority to win a major championship. Lee Trevino and Nancy Lopez, both of Hispanic descent, have won majors.Pub Date: 4/15/97

Anne Arundel County police are investigating a burglary over the weekend that left a Brooklyn Park hair salon defaced with racist messages and swastikas. Police said in a statement that they believe a single person was responsible for the break-in at Heavenly Hands Unisex Salon. They called the crime an "apparent arson attempt" - gasoline or some other combustible liquid was poured everywhere, including in the hair dryers. Whoever broke in also stole a computer and several other items.

He has been called "Ken Burns' cinematographer," and that's pretty high praise in its own right. But the career of Allen Moore, a 57-year-old documentary filmmaker from Baltimore, extends beyond serving as principal photographer on such Burns epics as The Civil War and Baseball. The most fascinating part of that career today is the way Moore, a faculty member at Maryland Institute College of Art and owner of the Allen Moore Films Inc. production company, is changing with the new media times - even as he remains at the pinnacle of nonfiction documentary cinematography.

PARIS -- Felix Wu faces an uphill fight in today's election to govern a neighborhood that includes this city's Chinatown. As his name suggests, Wu is of Chinese descent and, indeed, he says he's running to represent the Asians of the 13th arrondissement, or district. This might sound routine to Americans used to immigrants breaking into politics through their ethnic identity. But in France, Wu is seen as a revolutionary - or more accurately, a counter-revolutionary. For the more than 200 years since the French Revolution, this country has declared that distinctions of race or creed must be submerged for the good of France.

After some 150 years of promoting fire chiefs from within, Baltimore City has gone outside the department for the first time ever - way outside, like to the banks of Lake Wobegon. Well, not quite, but imagine Garrison Keillor as a fire chief, and that's pretty much who showed up this week when Mayor Sheila Dixon introduced her pick to head Baltimore's department. Currently Minneapolis' fire chief, James Clack came off as towering and self-effacing, a 6-foot-6-incher who could blend into the woodwork with his earth-tone suit and reserved style, quietly affable and also slightly quirky.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa --At first glance, Isabella Mosime's story could not possibly say all that much about the future of South Africa. After all, she is a black teenager who was raised by a white family, an anomaly in this race-obsessed country. Look more closely, though, and Bella exemplifies something potentially significant. Because she has a foot in both the black and white worlds, this loud and bubbly 19-year-old can move nimbly back and forth, smudging those lines in the process.

Oct. 22 1797 French balloonist Andre-Jacques Garnerin made the first parachute descent, landing safely from a height of about 3,000 feet over Paris.

Oct. 22 1797 French balloonist Andre-Jacques Garnerin made the first parachute descent, landing safely from a height of about 3,000 feet over Paris.

25 years ago (week of Oct. 25-31, 1970)Howard County Executive Omar Jones told residents at a Wilde Lake town meeting that, despite a rapidly growing population, the size of the county police force could not be increased until the next fiscal year.The Human Relations Council encouraged county residents of African-American descent to apply for county and state jobs.

Halloween is just a couple weeks away, and once again it looks like Baltimore will have to do without the classic horror filmfest the day so richly deserves. Someday, somewhere, somehow, Baltimore is going to have itself an all-night (or even all-day) horror-movie marathon around Halloween. Maybe at the Charles. Maybe at the Senator, or the Bengies. Maybe even at the soon-to-open Landmark Theatres at Harbor East. Or even at the BMA. Heck, have it at the corner of Howard and Centre streets, but have it somewhere.

The path to health can be measured in steps-10,000 of them a day, fitness experts advise. Polar's Activity Watch ($199, online; www.polarusa.com) wakes you up, counts your steps, estimates amount of effort and calories burned and keeps track of altitude ascent and descent - without breaking a sweat. And it does all this in an attractive, easy-to-read package that doesn't require a monitoring chest strap. Unlike a pedometer, the Polar gives you a customized reading. The case is rugged stainless steel and the strap is super secure.