Magnetic Fields

R. Kelly will perform at the Lyric Opera House July 19. Tickets go on sale at 11 a.m. today. Call 410-481-SEAT. The 7th annual Baltimore Blues Festival will be held June 22-24 at Bohager's. Among the scheduled performers are Michael Burks, Todd Wolfe & the Todd Wolfe Blues Project, Bruce Ewan & the Solid Senders, Rollie Tussing, Catfish Hodge and Big Jesse Yawn & His Music Men. Proceeds benefit Hungry for Music, Project Millennium and the Baltimore Blues Festival. Call 410-494-9558 or 888-494-9558.

With the number of cellular telephone customers growing exponentially, the number of radio towers needed to provide service for all areas of Carroll County will have to increase as well. The issue the county commissioners need to resolve is where to place these towers.In urbanized areas, the cellular radio towers are usually unobtrusively situated on the roofs of tall buildings. They are hardly noticeable and blend in with the city scape. But in a rural county such as Carroll with virtually no tall buildings, these towers -- some as high as 250 feet -- are hard to miss.

Sometimes, the toughest health issues are those where the risks are suspected, but unconfirmed. Electromagnetic fields are classic example.If electromagnetic fields, or EMFs, do cause cancer, we are all in trouble. EMFs are generated by everything from overhead power lines to electric can openers. Whatever risk they carry must be measured against nothing less than our way of life.EMFs have been an issue in Annapolis for the last two years, ever since the Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. tried to expand its Tyler Avenue substation to meet demands for power on Annapolis Neck.

Scientists in Pittsburgh can make footballs talk. Priya Narasimhan, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and her team of 10 engineering students have developed a "smart football" with a GPS unit and accelerometer, both contained in a half-ounce microchip inside the ball. The chip can measure the speed, spin, trajectory and — even when it's buried under a pile of players — the precise location of the ball. The NFL is looking into the technology as a way to make officiating and game timing even more accurate.

Columbus, Ohio Astronomy is big science, dominated by universities and institutes, foundations and consortia, collaborators and co-authors.But Gerrit L. Verschuur stands alone.The 55-year-old scientist from Bowie, who holds neither a full-time academic post nor a research grant, showed up at the American Astronomical Society meeting Tuesday claiming to have single-handedly solved a 31-year-old puzzle concerning the origin of an interstellar shell of hydrogen gas clouds approaching the sun at nearly 500,000 mph.Dr.

Johns Hopkins University chemical engineer Dr. Denis Wirtz has developed a sort of molecular towing service.Wirtz has devised a way to hitch tiny iron-oxide beads to individual DNA molecules. Then, using a computer keyboard or joystick, he can alter magnetic fields around the molecules to tow the beads and their DNA wherever he wants -- in three dimensions, and all by remote control.Dyed so that they fluoresce with a blue glow, the threadlike DNA strands can be seen on a video screen, drifting and turning obediently in ghostly formation as they move through a dark sea of nonbeaded DNA."

When you run, you burn 100 calories per mile, whether you run fast or slow. You keep essentially the same physical form when you run fast or slow, using the same motions and burning the same number of calories per mile.Scientists recently studied two groups of men. One group ran 2 miles slowly -- in 35 minutes -- and burned 200 calories during their workout. The second group ran 2 miles fast -- in 17 minutes -- and burned the same 200 calories, but the faster group lost far more body fat. Why does intense exercise make you more lean?

Several recent studies have provided more information about the health effects of computer use, and one of them included what appears to be reassuring news about the effects of electromagnetic fields on pregnant women.Previous studies of video display terminal use among women have yielded conflicting and inconsistent results, producing growing concern among workers and managers about the prudence of assigning women of child-bearing age to computer-related jobs.Some studies have suggested -- but not proved -- a link between computer radiation and a variety of pregnancy problems, including miscarriage, birth defects and birth problems.

Columbus, Ohio Astronomy is big science, dominated by universities and institutes, foundations and consortia, collaborators and co-authors.But Gerrit L. Verschuur stands alone.The 55-year-old scientist from Bowie, who holds neither a full-time academic post nor a research grant, showed up at the American Astronomical Society meeting Tuesday claiming to have single-handedly solved a 31-year-old puzzle concerning the origin of an interstellar shell of hydrogen gas clouds approaching the sun at nearly 500,000 mph.Dr.

GREENBELT -- Scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center unveiled new satellites yesterday that may represent the future of space science - and they're about the size of your microwave oven. The agency's Space Technology 5 mission will test three micro-satellites designed to measure Earth's magnetic field, track the solar storms that batter it and serve as prototypes for probes that can predict solar hurricanes the way forecasters predict the weather on Earth. It's an increasingly important job in a world that relies on global positioning technology for navigation and communication - systems that can be dangerously disrupted by solar storms.