Quantum Leap

Thanks to DVD, the future of home video has never seemed brighter. Or sharper.Touted as the greatest breakthrough in entertainment gadgetry since the compact disc, DVD (which, depending on whom you ask, stands for either Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) makes VHS tapes or laser discs look positively antiquated. DVD delivers a crisper, more detailed picture than either of them. Moreover, DVD can fit an entire film on a disc the size of a CD, while offering features beyond anything offered on previous generations of video players.

Drop in front of the television, thumb the remote control through the blizzard of images and odds are pretty good you'll find lots of biting sharks, enigmatic mummies, churning tornadoes or star-slurping black holes.Never, it seems, have there been more science shows. And never have more people watched them.Sure, American students score miserably in science and math tests, compared to the rest of the world. (In one recent comparison, eighth-graders in the United States ranked behind all but four of 41 nations: Lithuania, Cyprus, Portugal and Iran.

A $300,000 gift from Lockheed Martin Corp. will support a new science center that Western Maryland College will begin building in the spring.The $12 million laboratory center will replace a parking lot behind Lewis Hall for Sciences, which was built in 1914 when scientists had only crude knowledge about the existence of DNA and the way an atom functions."

Sixteen years ago, Ruth Donati went to work as a receptionist for a group of five pediatricians in Towson. It took the equivalent of one and half people to do the paperwork for the practice, using an old punch card machine.Since then, the office has modernized; Dr. Felix Kaufman, one of the pediatricians, says the doctors have spent $100,000 on computer systems. And the practice has joined Premier Medical Group, which is taking over a chunk of the administrative chores.So it doesn't take one and a half people to handle the paperwork any more.

Kwame Kwei-Armah is turning up the floodlights on Center Stage . It's been not quite two years since the British-born playwright became artistic director of Maryland's largest regional theater. With his production of two button-pushing dramas nicknamed "The Raisin Cycle," the beams emanating from 700 N. Calvert St. are strong enough to be spotted in distant places, from the Big Apple to the Badger State. Articles about the cycle, in which both plays run in repertoire and have the same casts, have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Drama series: "China Beach," ABC; "L.A. Law," NBC; "Northern Exposure," CBS; "Quantum Leap," NBC; "thirtysomething," ABC.Comedy series: "Cheers," NBC; "Designing Women," CBS; "The Golden Girls," NBC; "Murphy Brown," CBS; "The Wonder Years," ABC.Drama-comedy special and miniseries: "Decoration Day -- Hallmark Hall of Fame," NBC; "The Josephine Baker Story," HBO; "Paris Trout," Showtime; "Sarah, Plain and Tall -- Hallmark Hall of Fame," CBS; "Separate But...

For the three television networks, Tuesday was another night of not-so-great ratings for the Democratic convention.ABC's convention coverage, which ran 60 minutes, drew a rating of 5.8 and was viewed by about 7.4 million people, according to Nielsen Media Services. In contrast, "Coach," which ran right before ABC's convention coverage began, had a 12.6 rating and 19 million viewers.NBC's convention coverage, which also lasted 60 minutes, had a 4.4 rating and 5.5 million viewers. "Quantum Leap," which led up to the convention on NBC, had a 6.2 rating and 8.8 million viewers.

A bill authorizing the first major federal study to look specifically at whether environmental factors play a role in breast and prostate cancer has been approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.The two-year study would be conducted by two of the federal government's premier research institutes -- the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences -- and would include elaborate environmental testing as well as in-depth questioning of hundreds or perhaps thousands of people.

Andre Lwoff, 92, a pioneer in the field of molecular biology and a winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Medicine, died Friday in Paris. He shared his Nobel with two French colleagues, Francois Jacob and Jacques Monod, for the discovery that the genetic material of a virus can be assimilated by bacteria and passed on to succeeding generations. He had discovered earlier that genetic material can exist outside the cell's nucleus.William Daniel Murray, 85, who was elevated to the federal bench in 1949, died Monday in Butte, Mont.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. The historic Indy adventure and a week off behind them, the stars of the NASCAR Winston Cup series got back to business today.Davey Allison, the points leader as the season reaches the halfway point, was among the favorites to claim the pole for Saturday's Pepsi 400. He will be bidding for a sweep at the 2.5-mile trioval, having scored his first Daytona 500 victory Feb. 16.Allison was among nine drivers who tested their Fords and Chevrolets...