Light Bulb

Mission: To educate the public about the history and development of the electric light bulb and to preserve and display in chronological order a collection of light bulbs that ranges from Edison's earliest attempts at commercial illumination to the present. Artifacts include the world's largest bulb, 50,000 watts and 4 feet high, and the smallest, designed for NASA and viewed only under a 50-power microscope. The collection also includes the first 1906 tungsten bulb, four of the bases of Edison's 1879 bulbs, and the first U.S. patent issued to Edison for a bamboo filament light bulb.

Q. How many genes does it take to change a light bulb?A. One. The same as for a heavy bulb.The International Olympic Committee cleaned up its act. Just ask it.While we are giving the Canal Zone back to Panama, why not go the whole way and give Panama back to Colombia?The first task for MTA is to make Light Rail service as good as it was before they added the BWI and Penn Station stops.

IN MATTERS of home improvement, I am known as The Dimwit, a title proudly passed down to me by my father and, for all I know, his father before him. Builders of shelves, we never were. Hammerers and sawyers, not even. When asked about the full range of my household repair skills, I always answer, I can just about screw in a light bulb.Yet even in the embarrassment of such full disclosure, I can now say this on behalf of myself and all other previously mocked men of my ancestral limitations: At least we can do more than certain city work crews, of whom The Sun's Tom Pelton last week plaintively asked: "How many Baltimore public works employees does it take to screw in a light bulb?"

IF A LIGHT BULB burns out, does anyone change it? No one I live with.When the lights go out at our house, I begin to wonder if these people I live with are actually related to me.They seem to be creatures of darkness. If they encounter a lamp with a burned-out bulb, they keep moving, plunging into the abyss as if nothing were the matter.I, however, am a creature of light, a compulsive changer of bulbs, a lighter of lamps.As soon as a bulb fizzles, I feel the need to immediately replace it. If I don't have the right type of replacement bulb in storage I get irritated.

BOSTON -- Call it a moment of enlightenment. You can almost envision a cartoon light bulb going on over the White House.Searching for a down-home example in the midst of the dire graphs and numbers being bandied about by scientists, the president brought up the subject of the high-tech light bulb at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. It's a bulb that costs more in the beginning, but lasts longer in the end.Sometimes, the man of the house told the assembled, he wonders...

The sportswriters have it easy. To calculate the New York-Baltimore match-ups they need only do the math: Cone vs. Wells, Martinez vs. Palmeiro, Jeter vs. Ripken. New York 10 games, Orioles 3 in the season series. Nothing to it.Step off the field and it's another universe. It's two universes. It's New York and Baltimore, two Major League Baseball cities connected by a couple hundred miles of railroad track and interstate and separated by almost everything else. Three hours on the train and a $58 off-peak Amtrak fare gets you to Planet Manhattan -- the fastest, cheapest space travel ever devised.

ATLANTA -- When the United States boxers say coach Al Mitchell is hard-headed, little do they know.The man has a plate in his head!It was sort of Mitchell's little secret until yesterday, when a reporter asked him the name of the mom-and-pop store he used to run in Philadelphia, and a light bulb -- or maybe it was the actual plate -- went off inside his head."

Here's a word association quiz: What does the term "museum" call to mind?You thought of paintings and sculpture, right? Or maybe dinosaur bones, old aircraft or wax figures?Bet you didn't think of light bulbs, tanks or code-breaking machines. Yet those and other unusual objects have found their way into carefully cataloged collections that offer unusually educational touring.For example:Mount Vernon Museum of Incandescent Lighting, 717 Washington Place (Charles Street). Tours by appointment.

As a public service, today's column is devoted to helping readers, infield kamikazes and other assorted hons answer the Big Question on everyone's mind: What can the beloved second jewel of the Triple Crown do for me? (In other words, which of these equine Elvises deserves the honor of racing with a couple of my hard-earned nickels on his head?)We understand that it can get awfully confusing on the way to the betting window on Preakness Day. All those numbers. All those statistics. All those people wearing hats with pieces of fruit them.

* Oakland Mills: 9500 Kilimanjaro Road: Someone smashed the driver's side window of a 1983 Chevrolet Cavalier between 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Friday.* Owen Brown: 7000 Cradlerock Way: Someone severed the antenna of a 1988 Ford Escort between 7:30 p.m. Friday and 4:55 a.m. Saturday.* Kings Contrivance: 10000 Cape Anne Drive: Someone shattered the light bulb of a lamppost between 9 p.m. Friday and 7 a.m. Saturday.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was dead, Baltimore was ablaze and four teens at Loyola Blakefield High School responded with their version of rebellion. They began asserting their racial identity, challenging authority and reading militant authors. They grew Afros. In the days and months after King's murder 40 years ago today, consciousness spread nationwide as the word black replaced Negro and clenched fists were raised with pride. But the elite Jesuit school in Towson was caught off guard by the assault on its dress code.

WEST ORANGE, N.J. -- At the Edison National Historic Site, archivist Leonard DeGraaf oversees a vast collection of artifacts from the great inventor's work, including early examples of the incandescent light bulb that first lit the world more than a century ago. Since December, when Congress mandated the phase-out of such bulbs, DeGraaf has heard and read suggestions that Edison, were he alive, would be upset that one of his most famous devices was...

As temperatures plummet and fuel prices soar, many Maryland residents are dreading the coming winter months. But 300 low- to moderate- income homes in Northeast Baltimore are getting a boost from Project Light Bulb, an energy-efficiency initiative undertaken by the urban service corps Civic Works. The three-month pilot program, which began last week, has pledged to provide energy-conserving devices to residents of the Coldstream-Homestead-Montebello and Belair-Edison neighborhoods who are struggling with their utilities bills.

How many cavemen does it take to screw in a light bulb? Regrettably, we all may hear the answer tonight on ABC, as the alphabet network unveils what may well be the most anticipated new show of the TV season - if, by anticipated, one means in a watching-the-train-wreck-unfold sort of way. ON TV Cavemen airs at 8 tonight on WMAR, Channel 2.

Sometimes we need to turn on our intellectual light bulb to illuminate the smartest spending decisions that aren't obvious. Such is the case with the light bulb itself - specifically, compact fluorescent bulbs. Using compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs as the energy-efficient bulbs are called, in home light fixtures is absolutely a good idea. You'll save money, both on the bulbs and on electricity costs. In fact, each bulb will save you at least $30 over its life compared with incandescent bulbs, according to Department of Energy estimates.

BOSTON -- On the day that the latest report on global warming was released, I went out and bought a light bulb. OK, an environmentally friendly, compact fluorescent light bulb. No, I do not think that if everyone lit just one little compact fluorescent light bulb, what a bright world this would be. Even the Prius in our driveway doesn't do a whole lot to reduce my carbon footprint, which is roughly the size of the Yeti lurking in the (melting) Himalayas. But it was either buying a light bulb or pulling the covers over my head.

Even Thomas Edison would scratch his head over the choices in a typical home center's light bulb aisle. The array seems endless - compact fluorescent and incandescent, clear and frosted, Edison base and candelabra, round and funnel-shaped. So many options, so little information. We're here to help you sort out the myriad bulbs out there. For simplicity's sake, we'll stick to general-service bulbs (also called Edison-base bulbs), the screw-in types that fit most lamps and light fixtures in a typical home.

Katherine Henneberger, a retired Goucher College economics professor who believed that the study of financial trends did not have to be dull, died of cancer Friday at her Owings Mills home. She was 61. Born in Baltimore and raised on her parents' farm, Milford Meadows, she was a 1963 graduate of Milford Mill High School and earned a bachelor's degree in English at Goucher College. As a young woman, she rode horses and was a model and an orientation and training director for the Hecht Co., where she also edited the retailer's in-house employee publication.

Eric W. Allen, a lighting salesman and a member of the Screen Actors Guild, died of cancer April 22 at his brother's home in suburban Atlanta. He was 45. Born in Binghamton, N.Y., where he attended schools, he moved to Northeast Baltimore in 1980. For the past 25 years he worked in sales at Champion Industries in Owings Mills, a distributor of electrical supplies. In the early 1990s he dressed as a light bulb and stood outdoors, waving to motorists at York and Padonia roads. "He was the top contributor to the company all the years he worked here," said Andrew Stafford, a co-worker.

Sure, we had a great January, and spring is just around the corner. But this is February, the shortest -- and in its own way, the longest -- month of the year. It's cold and dark, and you need a cure for the winter doldrums. Here are 10 suggestions that might help: 1. Do something for yourself. Stop dieting until spring (but eat healthful foods as often as you can). Buy yourself a pair of ridiculous shoes. Have a glass of champagne. Get tickets to a concert. Work your way through the American Film Institute's list of 100 best films (afi.