Hack

When asked to draw a picture of a scientist, Cheryl Hack's biology students at Anne Arundel Community College almost always turn in the same image: A man with glasses, frequently with frizzy, Einstein-like hair.And Ellen Bungay finds that most of her art history studentsalso picture an artist as a man, frequently with odd clothing, oftenbearded.This tells Hack and Bungay that even in the 1990s most students still view men and women in terms of cultural stereotypes. Hack and Bungay are trying to change that, as are professors in colleges across the country.

By breaking the rules on how to dissect a human body, dental researchers at the University of Maryland at Baltimore believe they have stumbled across a jaw muscle never before described in the anatomy textbooks.Dr. Gwendolyn F. Dunn and Dr. Gary D. Hack say the 1 1/2 -inch muscle connects a point on the skull directly behind the eye to a spot on the lower jaw behind the teeth.They suspect it may be responsible for "retro-orbital pain," or pain behind the eye, experienced by some patients suffering disorders of the chewing muscles.

A neurosurgeon and two dentists at the University of Maryland at Baltimore say they have stumbled across a structure in the neck that is new to science, and which might explain how muscle tension can cause splitting headaches.Dr. Walker L. Robinson, the neurosurgeon; dental school professor Gary D. Hack; and visiting scientist Richard T. Koritzer, also a dentist, say they have found a quarter-inch piece of connective tissue linking a minor muscle deep in the back of the neck to the dura mater -- the highly sensitive membrane that covers the spinal cord and the brain.

Three men who escaped Tuesday evening from the state prison system's Herman L. Toulson Boot Camp in Jessup were being sought last night in a Baltimore carjacking. The men were identified as Phillip Schimminger, 24, of Baltimore, serving 8 1/2 years for burglary; Gerald Shaffer, 29, of Baltimore County, serving 2 1/2 years for robbery; and Matthew Gibalia, 19, of Johnstown, Pa., serving 7 1/2 years for theft. Yesterday evening, after getting a ride at Howard and 25th streets from a boy, 16, working as a hack -- an unlicensed taxi driver -- they forced him out of and took his brown 1984 Chevrolet Caprice about 6:20 p.m. at Falls Road and Hillside Avenue, police said.

Ada Becker, a former Baltimore fashion model and clothier, died Thursday at North Oaks Retirement Community in Pikesville of complications from a fractured hip. She was 89. Ada Gorelik grew up in Baltimore, the eldest of three girls and the piano player of the group. "She played quite well. Our [middle] sister Ruth used to dance and I used to do the singing," said Lillian Hack, the youngest of the trio. "We used to go out and entertain different organizations, not to be paid, just because we enjoyed it."

Montebello Brands Inc. had bottled plenty of strange and wonderful liquors at its Baltimore plants before, but none seemed stranger or more financially wonderful than "shoju," a kind of watered-down vodka that Koreans were guzzling the way Americans gulp beer.But early this month, the Korean government closed the tap on the Baltimore-bottled shoju when Korean police arrested Montebello's importers for, among other things, selling "sham shoju."Now Montebello finds itself in the middle of an international imbroglio.

Not even the flu can slow the Arundel girls basketball team. With a case of the virus taking its toll on leading scorer Jill Marano and rugged inside player Tracey Pucci, the senior tandem of Catherine Gonzalez and Najmah Fauntleroy lifted the second-ranked and host Wildcats to a 60-45 win against No. 20 Broadneck in Gambrills last night. With Fauntleroy, a 6-foot forward, registering 15 points, 11 rebounds and three steals and Gonzalez, a guard, notching a game-high 16 points, four assists and three steals, Arundel extended its winning streak to 16 games.

I admit I did not greet the arrival of preview cassettes from The Learning Channel for a four-hour series on the human face with the same enthusiasm as I did, say, an episode of The Sopranos or Six Feet Under from HBO. But what a pleasant surprise The Human Face - a provocative and amusing exploration of physiology as culture and possibly even destiny - turned out to be. Maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised given the huge visage of the fabulous John...

A former prostitute, who was raped, strangled, cut and left for dead in Leakin Park, took the stand Tuesday in Baltimore Circuit Court and tearfully recounted the details of the 2003 attack by an unlicensed "hack" cabdriver whose DNA is linked to two murders. "I felt his arm go around my neck and he started choking me," the 37-year-old woman said, waving her fists behind her head to show how she tried to fight the man off. "My eyes went up in my head, then everything went black." The Baltimore Sun is withholding the woman's name because she is the victim of a sex crime.

It was like a reward challenge: Endure a chilly, drizzly night in the elements and be among the first to try out for the reality television show Survivor. "If we can hack that, we can hack Survivor, absolutely," said Casey Starshine, who waited 14 hours with her 9-year-old son, Uriah. More than a dozen hardy souls did the same, huddling overnight under an open-sided tent at a Catonsville car dealership before Saturday morning's casting call. By day's end, more than 400 would-be contestants filed into Antwerpen Hyundai, where WJZ-TV set up two cameras.