Phobias

Glenallen Hill of the Toronto Blue Jays had a lot of explaining to do Saturday. Hill missed Toronto's 4-2 victory over Seattle because he injured himself Friday night trying to escape imaginary spiders in a nightmare. "I have a phobia about spiders," Hill said. "In the nightmare, I was trying to get away from spiders." Hill said he bounced off a wall and climbed up the 10 stairs in his apartment. "When I woke up I was on a couch and my wife, Mika, was screaming, 'Honey, wake up!' " he said.

As part of her regular contact with scientific colleagues, Rochelle Diamond, a research biologist at Caltech, says she hears stories about mild-mannered, objective scientists turning into name-calling bigots when it comes to homosexual co-workers. "Scientists are perceived by lay people as intelligent, learned and objective," she said. "Yet irrational fears and intolerance of homosexuals can be found everywhere, including among scientists and their institutions."

A former San Diego Municipal Court judge who resigned from the bench because of intense "stage fright" has been awarded a disability pension currently worth $56,002 a year, court records reveal. Former Judge Joseph K. Davis, 44, will receive the retirement pension for the rest of his life. The amount of the pension is keyed to the annual salary paid an active Municipal Court judge, so as the salary goes up, so will the pension.