Invention

North County High School freshman Jack Andraka stood on the auditorium stage, speaking about the invention that earned him the $75,000 grand prize at the recent Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Behind him stood Dr. Anirban Maitra, a professor in the Johns Hopkins University's department of pathology who gave Jack use of his lab to craft his invention, a cheap and effective "dipstick-sensor" method of testing blood or urine to identify early-stage pancreatic cancer and other diseases.

Leonard A. Skovira, who established three area dry-cleaning establishments and was also an inventor, died May 13 of cancer at his Parkville home. He was 94. Mr. Skovira was born and raised in Jessup, Pa., where he graduated in 1936 from Jessup High School. After high school, he served in the Pennsylvania National Guard and the merchant marine and then took a job in New York City working at Child's Restaurants, first as a busboy and then as a waiter and bartender. With the outbreak of World War II, Mr. Skovira moved to Baltimore and went to work on the assembly line of the old Glenn L. Martin Co. plant in Middle River, building Martin B-26 Marauder bombers.

Give the folks at "Invention" points for inventiveness.It's playoff and World Series time, and they came up with a show on baseball inventions. And to make sure that their discussion of a computer system which tracks curveballs wasn't too dry, they got Jim Palmer out on the mound at Memorial Stadium to demonstrate."

To make a cocktail, a bartender performs a complicated ballet involving spirits, mixers and garnishes, somehow juggling them all and finally bringing them in for a graceful, neat landing in your glass. At Heavy Seas Alehouse, bartender Will Helfrich has a simpler approach. He grabs a tall glass, sets it underneath the beer tap and pours eight ounces of sudsy, golden beer, Heavy Seas Classic Lager. And then tops it off with homemade pomegranate lemonade. Add a sprig of fresh rosemary and you have the Little Italy bar and restaurant's Sea Shandy.

Confirmed cable cruisers probably have been captured in their ceaseless channel changing by the program "Beyond 2000." On the basic-cable Discovery Channel numerous times during the week (including 6 p.m. weekdays), the show is a fascinating exploration of new and future technology, oddly enhanced by the obviously Australian accents of its hosts.Beginning tonight, however, an intriguing new domestic series of somewhat similar intent joins the Down Under import (which officials of the Maryland-based Discovery Channel say is one of its most popular programs)

The Smithsonian Institution and the Maryland-based Discovery cable channel team up to launch a new series tonight. And it's a nice little addition to the television landscape. "Invention," which debuts at 9:30 tonight on the Discovery Channel, celebrates the spirit of innovation and imagination put to practical use in American life. What makes the pilot work is the combination of snappy visuals, solid scholarship, respect for imagination, a healthy irreverence and an understanding that the line between genius and crackpot is often a very thin one when it comes to new ideas.

This is really embarrassing. Last Sunday I reported that Guglielmo Marconi was the inventor of the telegraph. Big mistake. A torrent of messages arrived to note the error. Well, not a torrent, since we are trying to be accurate here. Quite a few, though. Of course Marconi did not invent the telegraph. Samuel F.B. Morse did that. Marconi invented wireless telegraphy. This was an especially egregious error considering the association between this city and this newspaper and Morse's invention.

A CLASSROOM project has taken on more meaning for Robert Kegley, a 17-year-old Pasadena student at Archbishop Spalding High School -- winning him a $500 savings bond as a national finalist in the Duracell/National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) Invention Challenge 2000. Robert built a car -- a model one, anyway. It is battery-powered, hydraulic vehicle named Panther. It won't be running down Energizer bunnies, but through an attached control line the car can go through some hops of its own. The car was among 100 inventions selected from more than 1,400 entries in this year's contest, and rides into competition for the top prizes and a trip to the national NSTA convention in Orlando, Fla. Panther came to life as a final project for teacher Eugene Newman's engineering class at Spalding High in Severn.

IT HASN'T taken Austin Kyle Lankford long to make his mark on the world. At age 12, he's already won two citizenship awards during his early school years, taken first place in photography contests and gotten recognition for his 4-H woodwork.And now the seventh-grader from the Banner School in Westminster is competing in a national invention competition this weekend in Washington.Austin's invention -- a flotation device that helps boaters right a capsized canoe -- is one of this year's 45 innovative entries that might make people wonder why they didn't think of it themselves.

Gerald Early is the director of African and Afro-American studies at Washington University in St. Louis. In the December issue of Harpers magazine there appeared a wise and to my way of thinking extraordinary article on the cult of Malcolm X and the situation of blacks in America today. Let me quote from his piece:''But it always must be remembered that our blood is here, our names are here, our fate is here in a land we helped to invent. By that I have in mind much more than the fact that blacks gave America free labor; other groups have helped to build this and other countries for no or nominal wages.

Morris Tischler, a retired science teacher who invented a 1950s transistorized cardiac pacemaker, died of respiratory failure March 9 at his Pikesville home. He was 89. He was born in Newark, N.J., but when his father's real estate business failed in the Depression of the 1930s, he moved with his family to Crisfield, where Mr. Tischler graduated from Crisfield High School. As a youth he dabbled in electronics and built a crystal radio set. "I've seen the various technologies that have come along in my lifetime, from the television to the computer to the new hand-held devices," he told a writer for the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation News in a 2006 article.

Dennis James, a heralded armonica virtuoso who lives in upstate New York, will visit Baltimore next weekend to be a soloist with two organizations. The story goes that in 1761, when Benjamin Franklin invented the glass instrument he dubbed the "armonica," he kept it from his wife so he could surprise her by playing it one night after she had gone to bed. "Surprise" was the apt word. She assumed she had died and was hearing the music of the angels. To this day, the sound of the armonica, created by rubbing the rims of water-filled glasses with wet fingers, remains wonderfully ethereal — when you can hear it. There are few masters of this difficult instrument, and opportunities to experience their work don't come around every day. So it's doubly newsworthy that Dennis James, a heralded armonica virtuoso who lives in upstate New York, will visit Baltimore next weekend to be a soloist with two organizations.

Dr. Raymond L. Markley Jr., a retired Baltimore gynecologist whose specialty was female urology, died March 4 of pneumonia at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The former longtime Towson resident who was residing at Oak Crest Village, was 89. The son of a Lutheran minister and a homemaker, Raymond Law Markley Jr., was born in Chambersburg, Pa. When he was a teenager, he moved with his family to Lynchburg, Va., when his father was assigned to a church in the city. They later moved in 1936 to Greencastle, Pa., where he graduated in 1939 from Greencastle High School.

After reading a recent review on the blog for an expensive retractable leash for two dogs, an Anne Arundel reader wanted everyone to know that he's devised a much simpler, much cheaper leash built for two. Robert Winchester wrote to me after reading our review of the Freedom Leash , a gadget the reviewer found quite exciting as a concept, but lacking in convenience and reliability. "I too, have had made attempts to simplify the process of walking two or more pups and never had much success until in a moment of unusual clarity, arrived at a novel (and inexpensive)

There has been a great outpouring since the death of Steve Jobs on Wednesday. This is only fitting. Mr. Jobs was responsible for many great outpourings over the past three decades - including my own. In 1984, when I went off to college, I took along the fancy typewriter that had gotten me through high school: a Brother Correctronic with the magical ability to remember - and erase - an entire line of typing. Erasing a regrettable sentence on the Correctronic was simply a matter of pressing a button.

Compared to the endless assortments of sandwiches, burgers and fries you find at most lunch spots, good sushi can seem like a vacation. Baltimore is blessed with enough serious sushi places that you don't need to go far to get away. If you're in Federal Hill, one of the best options is Matsuri, right next to Cross Street Market. 12:02 The street level dining area is small, bordering on cramped, and the apparently random accumulation of decorations makes it feel more so. The upper-level dining room can seat larger groups and private parties of up to 50. Our corner window table gave us good light and placed us at eye level with a small school of goldfish.

The student: Kavita Shukla, 17 School: Centennial High Special achievement: Kavita was one of six students nationwide inducted into the National Gallery for America's Young Inventors last year. She was honored for her food-preservation technology using fenugreek, an ancient Indian herb. Kavita's invention, a biodegradable packaging paper, won the Baltimore Science Fair, which enabled her to compete in May at the International Science and Engineering Fair in San Jose, Calif. There she earned the First Grand Award in Environmental Sciences.

He doesn't have a college education, but he runs the country's largest after-school tutoring company. He's single and childless, but he's heading the effort to build the new, $30 million children's museum in downtown Baltimore."

While the name John Gilbert Collison Sr. has been largely forgotten today, his invention of the artificial steel hip ball more than 60 years ago has given him orthopedic immortality. His invention, manufactured in Baltimore in his Falls Road facility, has saved lives and given relief and hope to patients worldwide who suffered from fractured hips or severe arthritis. At a time when a fractured hip was almost a certain death sentence, his revolutionary invention gave people hope and the ability that they would regain and live normal, pain-free lives.

Jim Rouse's "festival market place" concept for the Inner Harbor, with retail pavilions and entertainment venues, brought with it the retail industry's pattern of re-branding and call for entertaining with ever new "attractions. " This put the harbor into competition not only with malls but also with amusement parks and beach venues — essentially defining it as a place of entertainment and amusement. Maybe it is time to challenge this paradigm. Should really great locations have to reinvent themselves constantly?