Science

The Canon A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science By Natalie Angier Houghton Mifflin / 304 pages / $27 One of the few books I ever stayed up all night to read was Knowledge and Wonder: The Natural World as Man Knows It, by the late great physicist Victor Weisskopf. In clear, simple prose, it introduced me to atoms and stars, crystals and metals, cells and life. All basic stuff: no black holes, no extra dimensions, no astonishing feats of genetic engineering. Nothing, in short, new. But it was wonder enough to alter me forever, turning a mild-mannered political and cultural writer into a science freak - the kind of person who drops dinner rolls at parties to demonstrate the equivalence of gravity and inertia.

A Broadneck High School senior's radiation experiment has earned her $1,000 for college and $1,000 for her high school science department, and a place among the best science students in the country. Danna Thomas, 17, was named one of 300 national semifinalists last week in the Intel Science Talent Search, often referred to as the junior Nobel Prize because six former finalists have gone on to win that honor. She is the only semifinalist from the county this year and one of only 22 from Maryland.

Emma Call, a senior at Polytechnic Institute, has been named one of 40 finalists in the nation in the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search competition. Two other finalists are from Maryland, both from Montgomery Blair High School in Montgomery County: Brian Robert Lawrence of Kensington and Richard Matthew McCutchen of Rockville. The finalists will travel in March to Washington, where their research will be judged and displayed at the National Academy of Sciences and they will meet with national leaders.

DNA on display If you're fascinated by forensic science, you'll want to catch the final day of the exhibit Putting DNA to Work, on view at the Marian Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington. Today is your last chance to explore the hands-on exhibit, which features 15 interactive displays and videos on how the science of DNA is used in everyday life. Visitors can learn how genetically similar humans are to various other life forms, such as chimpanzees, mice, fruit flies and a type of weed.

Don Herbert, who died last week from cancer, was better known to generations as Mr. Wizard. The irony in the name is that he was nothing like a wizard. He did not stand apart from us as a purveyor of secret magic, a power over which he alone had command, inspiring awe. Instead, in two popular TV shows spanning nearly half a century, Mr. Wizard brought science to all of us. Lacking the flash and dazzle of today's children's programming, Mr. Wizard would present an interesting situation and provide room for us to think along as he guided us to an understanding of the world we live in. His demonstrations grabbed our attention, but he always left us appreciating the universe as a well-organized place.

WASHINGTON -- Speaking days after the last surgeon general told Congress that he had been muzzled by the White House, President Bush's new nominee for the post told senators yesterday that he would quit before he let politics interfere with science. Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., a Kentucky cardiologist, also sought to distance himself from a 16-year-old church paper in which he characterized gay sex as abnormal and unhealthy. "I can only say that I have a deep, deep appreciation for the essential humanity of everyone, regardless of their personal circumstances or their sexual orientation," Holsinger, 68, told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Embryo Culture Making Babies in the Twenty-First Century By Beth Kohl Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus and Giroux / 288 pages / $24 In 1978, an eternity ago as measured by advances in science and technology, the first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, was born in England. Either a tiny blessing from heaven brought into the world with a little help from a team of miracle workers in white lab coats, or a suspicious "alien life-form" manufactured in the artificial light of a petri dish, Louise was for many a Rorschach test for the rapidly growing arsenal of modern reproductive technologies.

Hannah Pennington peered at the sample she had spread on a small slide. "I don't know what that red thing is," the 17-year-old senior said to her lab partners, assembled around a table in their science research class at Century High School in southern Carroll County. After further inspection of the sample freshly scraped from discs placed in a small body of water near the school, she said: "Ooh, it's a worm." "Keep it alive," her classmate Samantha Smith, 17, said. "We want to see him."

Hard to believe, but they're at it again. After 2002, when a National Cancer Institute statement reporting no link between abortion and breast cancer was changed by the Bush administration to say evidence of a link was inconclusive; after the administration cut language on global warming from a 2003 report by the Environmental Protection Agency; after a government scientist was forbidden in 2001 and 2002 from discussing health hazards posed by airborne bacteria...

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans fired a political rocket at Vice President Al Gore yesterday, dropping funding for a project he had proposed for the nation's space budget.At issue was Gore's idea for sending up a new U.S. satellite, to be called Triana, that would transmit pictures 24 hours a day to the Internet, showing images of cloud formations, large fires and other phenomena.The likely Democratic presidential nominee touted the proposal as a way to help interest young people in science and the environment and "to reach new heights of understanding and insight."

The Pill earned its capital letters in my house when my mother found mine after my freshman year in college. The packet had been designed to resemble a woman's compact so that birth control could be discreet. But I was a flower child and we didn't wear makeup, so I hid mine between the mattress and the box springs of my bed. I think my mother was looking for trouble. "You know," she said hotly. "Your father and I never relied on artificial means. We relied on prayer." "Mom," I said, with just as much heat.

Students at Shipley's Choice Elementary School will be getting a close-up view of the universe in the fall after winning a telescope giveaway contest sponsored by Maryland Public Television. The Severna Park school learned this week it will receive an 8-inch computer-controlled Celestron telescope as part of the 2009 International Year of the Telescope, a celebration of 400 years of telescope astronomy. The telescope retails for $1,800. Principal Rocco Ferretti said several tech-savvy parents last year proposed setting up a technology and science club to offer students enrichment activities before and after school.

Hoping to tap into an economic engine that can weather the recession, Gov. Martin O'Malley unveiled a strategy Tuesday for bolstering the space industry's foothold in the state by lobbying for more federal dollars and emphasizing science and mathematics in schools. O'Malley, speaking to more than 500 aerospace industry representatives in Greenbelt, outlined a plan to harness what he characterized as the state's "unsung economic hero." The vision is similar to one the governor has articulated for the biotechnology industry as a way to further move the state from a manufacturing- to a knowledge-based economy.

In her address at the 2009 PBS Showcase in Baltimore Tuesday, PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger said public television would dedicate itself to addressing three target areas of American life in the coming year: children's TV, the performing arts and journalism. And then, she and her chief programmers unveiled a lineup of series and specials that viewers will see in coming months, which showed proof of the commitment on each of those fronts. Leading the children's charge this fall on PBS will be Dinosaur Train, an engaging animated science series for preschoolers from the Jim Henson Co. - now being run by Lisa Henson, daughter of the Muppet master who founded the firm.

Nicholas Greer was in the middle of a lesson on ecological succession Tuesday morning when he heard a commotion in the hallway. Then, suddenly, a horde of administrators, school board members, colleagues and camera crews had descended upon his classroom at Polytechnic Institute. Greer, 29, was being named the city's Teacher of the Year. "You're kidding me," he said to the crowd that included schools chief Andr?s Alonso, Poly Principal Barney Wilson and Baltimore Teachers Union co-president Marietta English, as his ninth-grade biology students applauded.

Emily Schultheis never imagined that her love of tomatoes would translate into success in science. But that's what happened when her parents challenged her to explore a way to make it easier to pick her favorite fruit. "Ever since I was little, I liked to eat tomatoes," the 15-year-old sophomore at Glenelg High School said. "It was more fun to eat them than to pick them." Two years ago, Schultheis began working on a way to pick tomatoes using robotics. Her research has evolved into the award-winning project with a tongue-twister of a title: "Optical Feedback Improves the Accuracy of an Autonomous Robotic Arm That Will Pick Ripe Tomatoes."

President Barack Obama's order this month striking down Bush-era barriers to embryonic stem cell research overshadowed his perhaps larger announcement on science that day: He directed his science adviser to develop a comprehensive plan to protect science from politics in his administration. That's a worthy enterprise, and it will be a challenge given the vast scope of the problem. During the Bush years, it was all too common for administration political appointees to suppress or reshape scientific findings.

Fire Department can't afford cuts The Baltimore Sun's article "Dixon would cut city jobs, services" (March 19) glossed over the fact that in addition to closing two fire companies, Mayor Sheila Dixon's budget cuts would also lead to daily closures of fire companies. These "rotational closings," along with the permanent closures, are a direct result of the city's unwillingness to properly staff and fund the Fire Department. This will put the citizens of Baltimore at a greater risk. The city cannot close a fire company and expect the response time to the incident to be the same.

Maryland officials are considering giving a sampling of students an international test next fall to gauge how well the state's public schools are preparing students to compete with others in the world. The test being most closely scrutinized received a critical evaluation from the Brookings Institution recently because it is not geared to testing students on the material they learned in school, but rather on their general knowledge. The Programme for International Student Assessment, known as PISA, was last given in 2006 in 57 countries, including the United States, and is scheduled to be given again this fall.

Shirlee Joann Cohen No services are planned. She donated her remains to science.