Mathematician-turned-university-president Freeman A. Hrabowski III is known for encouraging minority students to pursue science and engineering careers. When the head of University of Maryland Baltimore County started as vice provost in 1987, black and Hispanic students were struggling in science...


University of Maryland Baltimore County - United States - University of Maryland - Baltimore County - Education

In the new sci-fi thriller "Inception," Dom Cobb, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, is a dream snatcher. He's an industrial spy who steals secrets by means of "extraction" when his victims are at their most defenseless: when they are asleep and dreaming. But he has an even rarer ability, that of "ince...


Inception - Leonardo DiCaprio - Arts - Christopher Nolan - Literature

Using heat from a forge that turns out car parts and hand tools, a Michigan manufacturer is developing an energy-efficient way to warm a year-round greenhouse on the company's roof.


Garden - Home - Rooftop - FAQs Help and Tutorials - United States

"The Youth Pill" (Current, $26.95) Like a modern-day Ponce de Leon, science journalist David Stipp sets out in search of the Fountain of Youth -- in capsular form -- in his book "The Youth Pill." As a reporter at the Wall Street Journal and Fortune magazine, Stipp had "gotten hooked on aging science...



Educational Resources - Organizations - Arts - Movies - Filmmaking

Although herds of wildebeests and zebras and prides of lions still roam Africa's national parks, they do so in smaller numbers these days. That's according to a study that found that large-mammal populations in those parks shrank an average of 59 percent over 35 years.


Breaking News - Educational Resources - Research - Mass media - Apollo 11

To conservatives, it is a pulling back of the curtain to expose the media's mendacity.


Ezra Klein - Sarah Palin - Politics - Media bias - Barack Obama

The ants are coming. Actually they're already here, marching across kitchens, basements and bedrooms in record numbers this summer. The Washington area's wet spring and summer heat have led to a bumper crop of the tiny crawlers, looking for food wherever they can find it. And experts say they wil...



Entomology - Biology - Arthropoda - Flora and Fauna - Animalia

Americans love to complain about the pitiable state of our once-great rail system and wonder why our locomotives are stuck in the past. I mean, you can zip between Wuhan and Guangzhou, China, at 220 mph. Japan's Shinkansen system tops 186 mph. The French TGV can blaze across the countryside at more...


Caboose - Business - Rail - Transportation and Logistics - Transport

This week the Lantern is taking a break from answering your green lifestyle questions to report on three studies that raise brand-new environmental dilemmas.


Climate change - Environment - Activism - Organizations - Impacts and Indicators

Ants are tenacious insects, so to get rid of them it's important to be just as persistent. A variety of methods can be used to deal with tiny odorous house ants, but none works overnight. The key, according to experts, is to disrupt the ants' foraging trails, which lead from the outdoor colonies ...


Ant - Outdoors - Flora and Fauna - Biology - Arthropoda

Educational Resources - Arts - Magazines and E-zines - Technology - Magnetic resonance imaging

Does the size of your brain -- or, more specifically, different regions of it-- say anything about your personality? According to a new study, maybe.


Educational Resources - Education - Magazines and E-zines - Technology - United States

A day that seemed destined for success ended in ambiguity Sunday. The blown-out well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico remained shut for the fourth day, but the national incident commander reported concerns about seepage around the well and ordered BP to improve its monitoring of possible...



BP - Gulf of Mexico - Coast guard - Federal government of the United States - Thad Allen

One woman panicked when the genetic test she had ordered over the Internet concluded that her son was carrying a life-threatening disorder and, even more disturbing, that he was not -- genetically -- her son. Another, who always thought she was white, was flabbergasted to find her genes were mostly...


Genetic testing - Genetics - Biology - Eukaryotic - Mammal

A key Senate committee unanimously passed a plan Thursday to postpone retirement of the space shuttle as part of a job-saving compromise to the Obama administration's wish to end NASA's program to return astronauts to the moon.


Space - Technology - Space Shuttle - NASA - Missions

Jane Goodall - History - War on Terrorism - Jane's - Warfare and Conflict

In the oil business, geologists tell stories. Here was a river, they will say. Here was a shallow sea. Here is where the sea dried up and left only salt. Here is where the sea formed anew, and widened, and deepened, and where sediments from another river, and the carcasses of microorganisms, were...



BP - Earth Sciences - Geology - Organizations - Government Geological Surveys

Single ladies, listen up: Your willingness to give a guy your digits may have more to do with the music in the air than with his looks or his line.


Women - People - Arts and Entertainment - History - Science and Technology

Arts - Magazines and E-zines - Technology - X-ray computed tomography - Research