L.A.'s greatest sports moments No. 3: 1984 Olympics opening

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We asked you to send in your picks for the greatest sports moments in L.A. history, and 1,181 ballots later we are unveiling the top 20 vote-getters. Each weekday?we will unveil a new moment until we reach No. 1.

No. 3: The 1984 Summer Olympics opening ceremony (17 first-place votes, 3,586 points)

The 1984 Summer Olympics were kicked off by what many still consider the greatest opening ceremony in Olympics history. Where else will you ever see 84 pianists playing "Rhapsody in Blue," a guy flying with a jet pack, Rafer Johnson lighting the Olympic torch, President Reagan, Sam the Eagle?and a standing ovation for Romania, the only Communist-bloc country to attend the Games?

In response to the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, 14 countries including the Soviet Union, Cuba and East Germany?boycotted the Games. For differing reasons, Iran and Libya also boycotted. When the competitors representing Romania marched into the Coliseum during the parade of countries, the capacity Coliseum crowd all rose to give them a lengthy standing ovation.

The David L. Wolper-produced opening ceremony mesmerized those inside the Coliseum as well as those at home, with ABC's Jim McKay and Peter Jennings handling the commentary.

But perhaps the most inspiring performance came courtesy of composer-conductor John Williams, already famous for his Hollywood scores ("Jaws," "Star Wars" and others). His "Olympic Fanfare and Theme" -- particularly its signature fanfare of trumpets at the start -- produced goose bumps and became synonymous with the Olympics. It later brought Williams one of his many Grammy Awards. Williams himself conducted the orchestra during the opening ceremony.

RELATED:

No. 4: John Wooden goes out a winner

No. 5: Angels win the World Series

No. 6: The 1967 USC-UCLA game

No. 7: Anthony Davis defeats Notre Dame

No. 8: Lakers finally defeat Celtics

No. 9: Fernandomania

No. 10: Magic scores 42 in Game 6 of 1980 NBA Finals

No. 11: Lakers win first title in L.A.

No. 12: Dodgers first game in L.A.

No. 13: Marcus Allen's Super Bowl run

No. 14: Lakers win 33 in a row

No. 15: Robert Horry's game-winner

No. 16: Honoring Roy Campanella

No. 17: Miracle on Manchester

No. 18: Lakers three-peat

No. 19: Rick Monday saves the flag

No. 20: Kobe to Shaq alley-oop

--Houston Mitchell

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/LAT_Sports_Blog/~3/_S5OkaWUWkQ/las-greatest-sports-moments-no-3-the-1984-olympics-opening-ceremony.html

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College students in town for the holidays carjacked, kidnapped, robbed

wwltv.com

Posted on December 19, 2011 at 12:42 PM

Updated Monday, Dec 19 at 12:42 PM

Chelsea Gaudin / Eyewitness News

SLIDELL, La. ? Two female college students, in town for the holidays, met for dinner on Dec. 13 to catch up and ended up being carjacked, kidnapped and robbed at gunpoint, according to the Slidell Police Department.

On Tuesday at 11:30 p.m., the women were sitting in a car in the parking lot of Main Street Centre?, located near Gause Boulevard and I-10, when a masked gunman approached the car and demanded they open the door.

They obliged out of fear for their lives and the man jumped into the back seat, demanded their cell phones so they couldn?t call 911 and forced them to drive to an ATM, police said.

An undisclosed amount of cash was withdrawn from the ATM at ASI Credit Union at 1322 Gause Blvd.

The women, who were unharmed, were then forced to drive to a dark, remote location on Powell Road where the suspect exited the car and fled, police said.

They drove to a nearby gas station and called the police.

The suspect is described as a black man in his mid to late 20s with a black ski mask, black jacket with a hoodie, and black jeans. The gun is described as a black semi-automatic pistol.

If anyone has any information, call the Slidell Police Department at 985-643-3131 or CrimeStoppers at 504-822-1111

Source: http://www.wwltv.com/news/northshore/College-students-in-town-for-the-holidays-carjacked-kidnapped-robbed-135870783.html

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Early help may improve preemies' behavior later (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) ? Giving parents of newborn preemies some help right from the start may make a difference in their children's behavior by school age, a new study suggests.

Children born prematurely tend to have higher rates of behavioral problems, like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), than their peers who were born full-term.

But not much has been known about whether intervening early with parents -- helping them interact better with their infants -- can make a difference in preemies' behavior in the long run.

For the new study, researchers in Norway tested a program that gave parents of preemies help right away, starting in the hospital.

After parents took their babies home, they received four home visits from a nurse over three months. The nurses gave them training in things like "reading" cues from their infant and interacting with the baby through play.

"Preterm infants are often more fussy, give less eye contact and are harder to understand for parents," explained lead researcher Dr. Marianne Nordhov, of the University Hospital of North Norway in Tromso.

"They display signs of stress in a subtle way, such as color changes, 'jittery' movements, and increased respiration rate," Nordhov told Reuters Health in an email.

The idea of the program was to help parents better understand their preemies -- and to give them a chance to "vent" their worries and stresses, Nordhov explained.

She and her colleagues randomly assigned parents of 146 preemies (born weighing less than 4.4 pounds) to either take part in the program or stick with standard care alone. They also recruited parents of 75 full-term infants to study for comparison.

At the age of 5, Nordhov's team found, children whose parents had been in the program were showing fewer behavior problems, like inattention, aggression or withdrawn behavior.

Based on parents' reports, 29 percent of those kids scored in the "borderline" range on the behavior-problem scale. That compared with 48 percent of premature kids whose parents had not been in the program.

Scores in the borderline range point to an increased risk for behavior problems like ADHD, Nordhov said.

In an earlier study that followed these children to age 2, the researchers had found no clear benefit. But the current findings underscore the importance of following kids' longer-term progress, according to Nordhov.

"Our study has shown that only 12 hours of parental education improves their knowledge and confidence, which in turn improve the interaction with their infant in a beneficial way," Nordhov said.

"It is important that nurses and doctors spend time with parents and teach them how to better interact and understand this 'difficult' task of language," she added.

A child psychologist not involved in the study agreed that early help is key.

"I'm not really surprised by the findings. They make total sense," said Lori Evans, of the New York University Child Study Center.

But what's different in this study is that the program focused on parenting skills right from the beginning of an infant's life. In the U.S., Evans told Reuters Health, the most common comparable program is called Parent Child Interaction Therapy -- which research suggests does improve kids' behavioral issues.

That's generally offered later, starting when children are about 3 years old and already have behavioral problems.

"Starting parent training early would be a wonderful thing," Evans said.

With children's behavioral problems, in general, she noted, "what we know is, the earlier we get them, the better."

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/uzVQge Pediatrics, online December 19, 2011.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/parenting/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111221/hl_nm/us_help_improve_preemies

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PETA wants NC opossum drop custom curtailed (AP)

RALEIGH, N.C. ? If a national animal rights group gets its way, people in a small mountain town in North Carolina will have to greet the new year without lowering a scrappy marsupial to the ground.

Clay Logan, who owns the Clay's Corner store in the far western tip of the state, has been lowering an opossum in a transparent box to the ground every New Year's for 18 years, in a local homage to the famous ball drop in Times Square.

This year, though, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has called on the state Wildlife Resources Commission to put a halt to the tradition, saying the activity is both cruel and illegal.

"Ignorance of the law is not a defense, and cruelty to animals is indefensible," PETA Director Delcianna Winders said. "Using a captive opossum as the centerpiece of a raucous party is cruel and illegal."

PETA's letter, sent this week, is being reviewed, according to a commission spokesman, who said no decision has been made yet. The group claims that Logan lacks the necessary permit to have wild animals, and that the annual event fails to meet the legal standard of "humane treatment" of animals.

"Oh yeah, they love me," Logan said of PETA.

Logan disputes the group's characterization of the event, saying the opossums ? it's generally a different animal from year to year ? are treated well, and that despite the name, nothing is "dropped." Instead, he said, the critter is gently brought to the ground from a height of about 18 feet, although PETA claims it's 40 feet.

"It's a lot of good clean family fun. No alcohol," Logan said. "We advertise it as the only New Year's party you'll remember the next day no matter how much fun you had."

The opossum drop is the centerpiece of the annual event, but it has grown to become what Logan's website calls "the epicenter of the entertainment scene in Brasstown," which has about 250 residents. The program for this year also includes a bull riding competition, a church choir and the traditional cross-dressing beauty competition.

"It fills the place up," Logan said. "On a warm night, it's about 3,000 people. If it's cold, maybe 2,000."

PETA says they've also sent a letter to Logan in hopes of persuading him to find an alternative to using a live animal at the event. They want him to emulate Tallapoosa, Ga.'s New Year's Eve Possum Drop.

"The great thing about Tallapoosa is that they don't use a live possum," PETA lawyer Brittany Peet said. "They use a taxidermied possum." And because it's the same stuffed critter every year, it's become something of a local mascot, Peet said.

The Opossum Drop may be North Carolina's most distinctive New Year's celebration, but the state has plenty of other "drops" planned for that day as well, including a giant acorn, a 30-pound flea made of fabric and wool and a light-up pickle replica in the vegetable-canning hotbed of Mt. Olive.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/pets/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111216/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_opossum_drop

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Drug Users With HIV at Much Higher Overdose Risk (HealthDay)

FRIDAY, Dec. 16 (HealthDay News) -- HIV-infected drug users are 74 percent more likely to have an overdose than those without HIV, a new evidence review finds.

Behavioral and biological factors may be among the reasons for this increased risk, according to the Rhode Island Hospital researchers. Drug overdose is a frequent cause of non-AIDS death among people with HIV.

The link between HIV infection and drug use is well documented, but the association between HIV and overdose has received less attention and was the focus of this study, which involved a review of 24 previous studies.

"Over the past 30 years, we have made impressive strides in caring for and prolonging the lives of people with HIV. Our study found that premature death by overdose is an issue that affects people with HIV disproportionately," study leader Traci Green, a researcher with Rhode Island Hospital and the Lifespan/Tufts/Brown Center for AIDS Research, said in a hospital news release.

"It is not entirely clear why the risk is greater, and few studies have endeavored to figure out why this might be happening," she added.

Biological factors may include clinical status, weakened immune systems, opportunistic infections and poorer physical health among HIV-infected drug users. Some research has suggested that hepatitis C infection and other conditions that affect metabolic ability may also increase the risk of overdose, according to the release.

Behavioral factors -- such as high-risk lifestyles and an increased rate of psychiatric conditions -- may also contribute to the higher risk of overdose among HIV-infected drug users, Green said.

Other possible factors could include homelessness and poverty, and poor access to medications and therapy used to treat opioid dependence, she suggested. Many HIV patients take opioid painkiller drugs as part of their treatment, while others use illegal opioids.

The study appears online in advance of print in the journal AIDS.

"Bringing overdose awareness and prevention into the HIV care setting is critical to reducing overdose deaths," Green said.

"Health care providers who treat HIV-infected patients with a history of substance abuse or who are taking opioid medications should consider counseling patients on how to reduce their risk of overdose. They may also consider prescribing naloxone (Narcan) to patients, or offering a referral to MAT (medication-assisted therapy) to reduce the risk of overdose," she advised.

Naloxone is a prescription medication that reverses an opioid overdose and has no abuse potential.

More information

The New Mexico AIDS Education and Training Center has more about recreational drugs and HIV.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/diseases/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20111216/hl_hsn/druguserswithhivatmuchhigheroverdoserisk

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NASA shows first global image taken from new satellite; Captain Planet approves

From breaking the ice on Jupiter's moon Europa to going Captain Ahab on comets, NASA's been quite busy formulating all sorts of "strategery" for future projects lately. But just because the space agency has to pay Russians to hitch a ride to space these days doesn't mean it has nothing going on in the present. Check out the first image from NASA's NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) satellite. The satellite launched October 28th and, eventually, will be able to measure anything from ocean temps to fire locations. While it can't do all of that just yet, the NPP satellite is at least capable of taking global images with its Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). The satellite is placed in a sun-synchronous orbit that lets it sync with the areas it covers at roughly the same time of day. The result? All images will have the same lighting since the satellite maintains the same angle between the Earth and the sun.

NASA shows first global image taken from new satellite; Captain Planet approves originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Dec 2011 13:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Space.com  |  NASA  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/17/nasa-shows-first-global-image-taken-from-new-satellite-captain/

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Biomedical Research Using Chimps Curtailed

Enlarge AP

A chimpanzee eats a coconut at the Alamogordo Primate Facility at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., in an undated photo from the National Institutes of Health. A plan to move chimps that had retired to the facility after being subjects of medical experiments sparked controversy and a review of research policies.

AP

A chimpanzee eats a coconut at the Alamogordo Primate Facility at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., in an undated photo from the National Institutes of Health. A plan to move chimps that had retired to the facility after being subjects of medical experiments sparked controversy and a review of research policies.

Updated 1:30 p.m.: The National Institutes of Health accepts the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine report on chimpanzee research, NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins said in a statement. "We will not issue any new awards for research involving chimpanzees until processes for implementing the recommendations are in place," he said.

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Most of the biomedical research currently being done on chimpanzees is unnecessary and the need for chimps in medical studies will soon decline even further, according to a highly-anticipated new report from an independent panel of experts.

The report says that the National Institutes of Health should allow experiments on chimps only if a new set of strict criteria are met, and recommends setting up an independent oversight committee that includes members of the public.

"The bottom line is, the necessity of chimpanzees is diminishing. We were able to only identify two areas of biomedical research where there is any continuing necessity, and one of those is actually going away quite rapidly," says Jeffrey Kahn of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, who chaired the committee convened by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

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The committee's study was requested by Congress and the NIH in the wake of a controversial plan to take nearly 200 aging chimps housed in New Mexico and make them again available for medical research. Animal welfare activists argued that these "retired" chimps had endured enough and should be left alone.

That uproar came just as groups such as the Humane Society of the United States have been pushing to end all invasive research on lab chimps and retire them to sanctuaries. Congress has been considering legislation that would ban research using chimps and other great apes. Many other countries already ban invasive research on these species, which are closely related to humans.

The expert committee wasn't asked to look at the ethics of research on chimps. It was only supposed to assess the scientific need. "But the committee felt very strongly at its first meeting that we couldn't talk about the necessity of chimpanzees without also thinking about the ethics of the use of chimpanzees, and so we did include that in our deliberations," says Kahn.

The new report says that about 1,000 chimps, ranging in age from less than a year old to more than 41 years old, are currently available for research in the U. S., which is largely conducted at four facilities.

The NIH sponsored 110 research projects from 2001 to 2010 that involve chimps, the report says. About half of the projects were hepatitis research ?chimps are the only animal other than humans that can be infected with hepatitis C ? and others ranged from studies of HIV/AIDS to comparisons of chimps' genes to those of other species.

The committee members could not agree and were evenly split on whether chimps are needed to develop a vaccine that can prevent hepatitis C infection, although they did agree that chimps were not currently necessary for research to develop antiviral drugs for the disease.

The committee also found that, given the state of the science and the availability of other research models, chimpanzees are currently unnecessary for studies of respiratory syncytial virus, which is the leading cause of hospitalizations for U. S. children less than 1 year old.

The panel did say chimp research was justified for a limited number of monoclonal antibody therapies that are in development, but said labs are already adopting new technologies that should eliminate the need for chimps in just a few years.

According to the new report, biomedical researchers should not use chimps unless their proposed work meets three criteria:

• There's no other animal or research model that can be used instead.
• There's no way to ethically do the research on people.
• Not doing the research on chimps would mean significantly slowing or preventing advances to treat or prevent life-threatening or debilitating conditions.

And chimps should only be used for behavioral research, such as psychology experiments, if there's no other way to obtain insights into things like cognition and mental health. Chimps used in such experiments should be "acquiescent," the report says, and not forced to participate against their will.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/12/15/143764694/biomedical-research-using-chimps-should-be-curtailed?ft=1&f=1007

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