Female

Hernias are a common ailment among Americans; more than 4 million people develop the painful condition. And although both men and women develop hernias, female patients may be harder to diagnose. Doctors and patients may not realize the abdominal pain a woman is feeling is because of a hernia. Dr. Hien Nguyen, assistant professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said the pain can be mistaken for other conditions with similar symptoms, such as adhesions from prior surgery, endometriosis, fibroids and ovarian cysts.

Sitting in front of a microphone Friday morning, Rosie Napravnik fielded questions about her first race at Pimlico Race Course while donning a hat from her new sponsor, Snickers Bites. For the 25-year-old jockey, it was a fitting juxtaposition, as she's risen to fame after she got her start as a jockey here in 2005. Now, Napravnik returns to race in Pimlico's biggest event on the course where she won her first start as a jockey. She will become the third female to ride in the Preakness and can become the first to win it, but that's not her motivation.

May. 18, Post Time: 10:45AM Entries and comments provided by the Maryland Jockey Club First - Purse $55,000, AOC $25,000-$20,000, 3 yo's & up, One And One Sixteenth Miles Post, Horse, Jockey, Trainer, Odds 1 Aussi Austin, Rosario, R.Rodriguez, 3-1 2 Bob's Gone Wild, Vargas, J.Lopez, 20-1 3 Jarrod's Commando, Karamanos, C.Garcia, 10-1 4 Warrensburg, Boyce, D.Barr, 20-1 5 Benny Or Local, Cruise, D.Kobiskie,...

I am a female sports fan. I go to games, watch them on TV, download the apps, read the stats, and buy the T-shirts. I recently heard about the launch of a new professional women's soccer league, and I started thinking about the sports to which I am attached. They are all professional male sports - plus men's college basketball - but I have never thought about why. I suspect it has to do with my age (51), which limited my exposure to girl's athletics - Title IX was just beginning to be implemented when I was in school - as well as my sports fan role model, my father.

Bob Baffert strode into the Preakness stakes barn Friday morning, shouting toward Orb's trainer Shug McGaughey loud enough so all could hear. "OK, Shug, I'm here to take away that media spotlight for you," he said. Baffert, indeed, is one of the few people in the sport who could have swiped some of the attention from McGaughey and his heavily favored colt this week . Baffert has won the Preakness five times, and on three occasions he's moved on to Belmont with a chance at the Triple Crown.

In the beginning, there was the skirt, Nancy Drew.Next, dames started saturating television like tears soaking a hanky. "Remington Steele," "Moonlighting" and "Murder, She Wrote" all boasted Bettys solving crimes the big boys couldn't -- or wouldn't -- touch.Now, the big screen has gone dizzy over doll detectives with "V.I. Warshawski," a movie about a glam-gammed gumshoe who springs to work for "a dollar and a just cause." Her job includes computer hacking, a high-speed boat chase, getting beat up and shot at, kidnapping and murder.

Baltimore County police have released a sketch by a forensic artist of a teen-ager whose remains were found last year in woods off Falls Road north of Mount Carmel Road.The remains of the female -- who police believe was black and between ages 17 and 19 when she died six years ago -- was found by a tree-trimming crew March 5, 1996.She was wearing a leather or vinyl zip-up jacket, a light-colored pinstriped blouse with pearl-colored buttons, size 7 pants with ankle zippers, MIA-brand high-top tennis shoes and gold hoop pierced earrings with a small gold ball at the bottom of the loop.

BOSTON -- By now you may think that "San Francisco Liberal" is her last name. "Nancy Pelosi San Francisco Liberal" is being used to frighten voters everywhere from Indiana to Georgia. She's caricatured as "Michael Moore," "a specter hanging like a cloud over America," and a woman waiting to rule the country with "illegal immigrants" and a "radical homosexual agenda." But if being demonized is the price for power, Ms. Pelosi is willing to pay it. The Democratic leader may not be renowned for delivering the party message, but she's great at keeping the House Democrats on message.

In Somerset County, a Maryland State Police officer corners Trooper Kate Flanagan in an office, grabs the back of her trousers and yanks up on her underwear, laughing and refusing to let go, she says.At a barracks in Charles County, a male officer approaches Trooper Linda Lozier from behind, licks her neck, rubs his crotch against her and forces her face down onto a table, demanding sex, she says.During a break outside an Eastern Shore field office, Trooper Susan Smith says, a state police supervisor tells her -- in front of the squad -- to perform oral sex on each of her co-workers.

I'M NOT saying this is good or bad, but there is an insect, a praying mantis to be exact, that decapitates her mate during sex. Reproductively speaking, this is not bad news. The male mantis' brain acts as an inhibitor of sorts; once it is gone, so is any restraint, and his headless body bends in intense copulatory movements.Then the female eats him.Now.How many of us remember high school biology classes, ones in which we observed the results of Luther Burbank's sweet pea genetics, dissected fetal pigs and charted the generations of fruit flies?

Maryland moved Monday to reduce the commercial harvest of female blue crabs in the aftermath of a survey finding that the Chesapeake Bay's crab population hit a five-year low last winter. The Department of Natural Resources announced that it was lowering the daily allowable catch of female crabs, effective Thursday. The move comes nearly a month after Maryland and Virginia officials announced the results of their annual winter dredge survey, which found that the bay's crab population had declined by nearly two-thirds over the previous year, to around 300 million, with juvenile crabs plummeting 80 percent.

Graham Peck, a 23-year-old from Baltimore, won the "Down the Stretch for SGK" Preakness 5K on Saturday morning at Pimlico Race Course , finishing in 17 minutes, 41 seconds. Jason Farber was second, 10 seconds back. Peck's father, Henry, finished 16th overall in 20:57 and his sister, Kaylyn, was the female runner-up. "It was a family affair. Running on the track was really fun, but it was wet, so it slowed us down," said Graham Peck, who ran track and cross country at Dulaney.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Baltimore lawyer Frank Morgan helped swimmer Michael Phelps , then 16 years old, select Peter Carlisle as his agent. Phelps was years away from stardom, but Carlisle aggressively marketed his client, hoping to eventually elevate him beyond the confines of an Olympic sport that mattered to a broad audience only every four years. Earlier this year, Carlisle signed another client - at the suggestion of Morgan - and put her on the Phelps plan. He's already signed a deal for jockey Rosie Napravnik to endorse Snickers - an agreement proposed before Carlisle learned that the candy bar was named for a horse - and has another in the works that could be announced before Preakness.

The Maryland State Police and Harford County Sheriff's Office report: Aberdeen Willtronious Fene Gates, 21, of the 4500 block of Susquehanna Avenue of the Aberdeen Proving Ground, was charged Tuesday with failing to appear in court in a case in which he was charged with stealing another's credit card and making another charge on a credit card greater than $500. Contressa D. West, 33, of the 4400 block of Antrim Court, was charged Tuesday with possessing a drug other than marijuana, obtaining drugs by fraud, possessing drugs with intent to distribute and defrauding state health care.

For years, mixed martial art has been a man's world. But 2013 is shaping up to be the year women take the spotlight. Ronda Rousey beat Liz Carmouche in February, during Ultimate Fighting Championship's first female bout. And this weekend, Shogun Fights VIII will host the first female professional mixed martial arts fight in Maryland. On Saturday, Rosanna Garcia and Gabrielle Holloway will face off at Baltimore's 1st Mariner Arena , as the co-main event on the card - an event that could open doors for women in the sport and ultimately allow for more female professional fights locally.

It's springtime, and with the beautiful weather and perfect light comes an age-old ritual as artists set up their easels around Maryland. You can find them working in a variety of mediums in Druid Hill Park, roadside in the Green Spring and Worthington valleys, along the winding stone-lined streets of Ellicott City, or on the wharves of St. Michaels and Rock Hall. And among the artists will be many members of the Baltimore Watercolor Society, the nation's third-oldest such organization.

Buying a new lacrosse stick for a you female player? Some things to remember (and remember, sticks for males are different; last week's Clinic offered advice): * Sticks must be between 35.5 and 43.25 inches long. The head must be 7 to 9 inches wide. The head on a goalie's stick can be up to 12 inches wide. Shorter is relatively better for youth players. * The stick is made of wood, laminated wood or synthetic material. * The pocket must be strung traditionally; no mesh, as male rules permit.

Maryland's new crabbing restrictions succeeded in reducing the catch of female crabs significantly last year, state officials said yesterday, despite reports from watermen that their harvest increased by 50 percent. State fisheries officials said that based on independent surveys, they estimate the female crab harvest in Maryland declined by 28 percent to 36 percent. Prompted by surveys indicating that the Chesapeake Bay's crab population was dangerously low, Maryland and Virginia both pledged last year to reduce the female crab catch by 34 percent.

The article, "Title IX under fire as colleges cut teams," (April 7) tackled the issue of Title IX proportionality at Towson University, but the perspective of athletic women and female coaches in this debate has been largely missing. One of the solutions of balancing the number of male and female athletes that was proposed in the article was adding women's teams in universities that are not complying with Title IX requirements. If there were barriers that prevent women from active participation in sports, this solution might not lead to the equality that the title was initially created to enhance.

It's been widely observed that there aren't enough females entering the fields of science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, as they're popularly lumped together. That perception is much more than an anecdotal one. Men outnumber women in STEM careers in the United States by 3 to 1, according to the National Math and Science Initiative, which promotes educational programs to increase America's competitiveness. Fewer than 15 percent of American engineers are women, although women comprise 48 percent of the nation's workforce, NMSI data reveals.