What comes now for NFL after tumultuous season?

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell answers questions during an NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game news conference at the New Orleans Convention Center, Friday, Feb. 1, 2013. in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell answers questions during an NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game news conference at the New Orleans Convention Center, Friday, Feb. 1, 2013. in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

FILE - In this Sept. 16, 2012, file photo, Philadelphia Eagles tight end Brent Celek, right, is tackled by Baltimore Ravens strong safety Bernard Pollard during the first half of an NFL football game in Philadelphia. Pollard likes to talk and loves to hit. The hard-tackling safety used the latter talent to push the Baltimore Ravens past New England and into the Super Bowl. (AP Photo/Michael Perez, File)

San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Randy Moss talks with reporters on Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013, in New Orleans. The 49ers are scheduled to play the Baltimore Ravens in the NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game on Feb. 3. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis stretches during an NFL Super Bowl XLVII walkthrough on Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013, in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans. The Ravens face the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

A large image of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin quarterback Colin Kaepernick decorates a building in New Orleans, Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013. The city hosts NFL football's Super Bowl XXLVII between the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens on Sunday. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? The Super Bowl closes a tumultuous year for the NFL.

Suicides by former NFL players. Thousands of others filing concussion lawsuits. New studies linking football to brain disease. Still no testing for human growth hormone. The specter of other purported performance-enhancing products ? deer-antler spray, anyone? ? being peddled to players.

A pay-for-pain bounty scandal. A lockout of officials resolved only after a ludicrous game-ending call. Zero minority hires for 15 coach or general manager openings.

And yet the league is as popular as ever.

Advertisers paid nearly $4 million per 30-second television commercial for the right to reach the 100 million or so Americans expected to tune in to Sunday's Super Bowl between the AFC champion Baltimore Ravens and NFC champion San Francisco 49ers. Eleven of the 12 most-watched TV programs during the last 2? years were NFL postseason games, according to the league.

Uncertain, though, is what the future holds for an NFL still coming to grips with the dangers of a brutal sport that makes it tremendously wealthy.

"The game has changed and keeps changing. ... It is such a violent game, and such a collision game, that careers are going to be kind of like not long at all. Because you take those licks ? you've only got so many in your body, and at some point that's going to wear it out," said Ravens running backs coach Wilbert Montgomery, who played that position for the Philadelphia Eagles and Detroit Lions from 1977-85.

Montgomery said he got six concussions in one season alone, and others along the way, including one that knocked him out cold a few days before playing for the Eagles in the NFC title game at the end of the 1980 season.

"I know one thing: Back then, it didn't make any difference. They gave you smelling salts and then, after that, you went back in," Montgomery said. "I have headaches all the time. That's why I say my wife is always messing with me when I have outbursts, saying, 'You've been hit too many times upside the head.'"

Montgomery laughed for a moment. Then he rubbed his forehead and continued talking, mentioning former teammate and friend Andre Waters and opponent Dave Duerson. Both committed suicide; researchers studied their brain tissue and found signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a degenerative disease also found in boxers and often linked with repeated blows to the head. Former star linebacker Junior Seau, who shot himself in May, also was found to have CTE. Baltimore's starting center on Sunday, Matt Birk, has pledged to donate his brain for study when he dies.

"It's a serious thing," Montgomery said. "It's scary."

When the President of the United States refers to fans perhaps having a guilty conscience when watching a game and parents thinking twice before allowing a child to play ? as Barack Obama did in a recent interview with The New Republic ? it sends a strong signal about what confronts the NFL today.

"If I was worried about my health," 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick said, "I wouldn't be playing football."

So the league must figure out how to deal with "walking a fine line," as 49ers CEO Jed York described it: The two-sided task of making the game safer, which Commissioner Roger Goodell acknowledges is imperative, while not making it "too safe," thereby diminishing the popularity of an enterprise that is violent by its very nature.

"There's no question that that is a bit of a conundrum. But to me, we've got to place more weight on player safety," New York Giants co-owner John Mara said. "The rules changes that we've implemented over the past five or six years have not made the game any less exciting. If anything, the game is as exciting as ever, and I strongly believe that we can make additional improvements in the rules and we're not going to lose anything in terms of excitement on the field."

Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti is convinced the NFL will strike the proper balance.

"What did they do for boxing when they made them go from 6-ounce, to 8-ounce to 12-ounce gloves or whatever? Did it change boxing? Not really," Bisciotti said. "I believe that with every change, there will be a correction. ... And I believe that we as a league and the (players' union) will agree on things that don't take football out of football."

In a series of moves that began shortly after Goodell was grilled at a congressional hearing, the league has changed concussion return-to-play guidelines, adjusted rules for kickoffs ? and floated the idea of eliminating them altogether ? stepped up punishment of illegal hits, and stopped arguing against the players' wish for independent neurology specialists on the sidelines during games.

Even if there are some players who in one breath worry about whether their health is imperiled, and in the next say, "We're basically going to be playing two-hand touch in a while" ? Baltimore nose tackle Terrence Cody's words this week ? the head of their union points out that prudence and popularity do not have to be mutually exclusive.

"The reality of it is, 'football as we know it' has evolved over decades. ... Our job is to have an unqualified commitment to the health and safety of the people who play the game, and then to make those changes where we see necessary," NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith said.

"I don't think there is this thing of 'football as we know it.' What we have is football that has constantly developed," Smith said. "And even with all of the (recent) rule changes ... my guess is this Super Bowl will be the highest-rated of all time."

Indeed, while the concussion lawsuits mount ? a U.S. District Court judge in Philadelphia will hear oral arguments in April on the NFL's effort to dismiss a group of cases ? and questions arise about what insurers will charge the league moving forward, the money does keep rolling in. Revenues already topped $9 billion at the time of the last labor deal in 2011, and new TV contracts will only help increase it.

"At $10-to-$12 billion? It ain't going nowhere," said Warren Sapp, a retired defensive tackle elected Saturday to the Pro Football Hall of Fame and who now works for the NFL Network, another piece of the league's marketing machine. "We play a beautiful game. We hit each other. (Players) have to take care of each other better. Then it will be fine."

Meantime, the NFL continues to look for new ways to increase its cash flow.

During his state of the league address two days before the Super Bowl, Goodell did not rule out increasing the regular season from 16 to 18 games, and he reiterated the possibility of expanding the postseason, too. He announced that two 2013 games in London already are sold out, and there could be three in future seasons ? down a path that, eventually, could lead to a franchise based in Britain.

"For you to be adding games to the season, are you looking out for player safety? Or are you trying to generate more player revenue?" 49ers receiver Randy Moss said. "If you're trying to look and protect the players, and keep it healthier and better every year, I don't think it's a good idea."

Several players in this year's Super Bowl were incredulous that the league would even consider more games. A handful voiced concern over a disconnect between players and owners.

The president of the NFLPA, former Ravens cornerback Domonique Foxworth, said he wonders how truthful Goodell and other NFL officials are being when they say ? as they often do ? that players' well-being is a priority.

"The league, their No. 1 focus ? at least they say their No. 1 focus ? is health and safety. And we say our No. 1 focus is health and safety. How come we have such a hard time moving the ball on some health and safety issues?" Foxworth said. "I believe health and safety is on their list of top five things, but it comes in well behind increasing the bottom line."

___

Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-02-03-Super%20Bowl-NFL's%20Future/id-d0f9dbdf6fe143bb8b0901fe350c944d

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Hundreds of European soccer games may have been fixed

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) ? A wide-ranging match-fixing investigation has uncovered more than 380 suspicious matches ? including World Cup and European Championship qualifiers and two Champions League games ? and found evidence that a Singapore-based crime group is closely involved in match-fixing.

"This is a sad day for European football," Rob Wainwright, head of the European Union police organization Europol, said Monday, referring to the sport Americans call soccer. He said the investigation uncovered "match-fixing activity on a scale we have not seen before."

The probe uncovered ?8 million ($10.9 million) in betting profits and ?2 million ($2.7 million) in bribes to players and officials and has already led to several prosecutions.

Wainwright said the involvement of organized crime "highlights a big problem for the integrity of football in Europe."

He said a Singapore-based criminal network was involved in the match fixing, spending up to ?100,000 ($136,500) per match to bribe players and officials.

It was not immediately clear how many of the matches mentioned Monday have been revealed in previous match-fixing investigations in countries including Germany and Italy.

Wainwright and other officials and prosecutors declined to identify any of the suspects, players or matches involved, citing their ongoing investigations.

He said while many fixed matches were already known, the Europol investigation lifted the lid on the widespread involvement or organized crime in rigging games.

"This is the first time we have established substantial evidence that organized crime is now operating in the world of football," he said.

Wainwright said there is now a "concerted effort" across the soccer world to tackle the corruption.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/european-match-fixing-probe-380-suspicious-games-112420894--sow.html

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Mutations linked to relapse of childhood leukemia discovered

Feb. 3, 2013 ? After an intensive three-year hunt through the genome, medical researchers have pinpointed mutations that leads to drug resistance and relapse in the most common type of childhood cancer -- the first time anyone has linked the disease's reemergence to specific genetic anomalies.

The discovery, co-lead by William L. Carroll, MD, director of NYU Langone Medical Center's Cancer Institute, is reported in a study published online February 3, 2013, in Nature Genetics.

"There has been no progress in curing children who relapse, in spite of giving them very high doses of chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants," said Dr. Carroll.

The discovery suggests how scientists may be able to thwart a dangerous form of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a rapidly progressing blood-borne cancer that strikes about 6,000 people in the United States every year and accounts for more than one in four pediatric cancers. Eventually, such information could help doctors detect the early emergence of chemotherapy-resistant leukemia cells in patients and switch to a different treatment strategy before the disease can fully reassert itself.

In acute lymphoblastic leukemia, abbreviated ALL, the body's bone marrow produces an abnormally large number of lymphocytes, or white blood cells. Improved treatments have increased the overall cure rate to roughly 80 percent. But Dr. Carroll says the prognosis is especially dire for some 20 percent of patients who relapse.

Medical researchers have suspected that the reemergence of disease could be due to drug resistance, but previous efforts had not uncovered any definitive pathway. For the new study, led by Dr. Carroll and graduate student Julia Meyer, researchers at five U.S. institutions spent three years analyzing multiple bone marrow samples from pediatric ALL patients for more clues to the disease's progression.

With the help of the Children's Oncology Group, a multi-institutional clinical trials consortium supported by the National Cancer Institute, the researchers analyzed the entire transcriptome -- or the full sequence of RNA -- from 10 children with pediatric B lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common subtype of ALL. RNA is an essential intermediary in the cellular process that uses DNA blueprints to assemble specific proteins, thus a leukemia transcriptome gives researchers a view of all active genes within the cancerous cells.

For each patient, the team pieced together a complete sequence of RNA extracted from the bone marrow at three time points: at diagnosis, during remission, and upon relapse some months or years later. All told, the project required the researchers to sequence, or spell out, 100 billion letters of RNA. By comparing the before and after sequences, the team found that each patient had acquired between one and six mutations that changed the genetic code over the course of the disease. In some cases researchers were able to detect these mutations in a very small subset (0.01 percent) of the tissue samples at diagnosis so that these cells likely expanded because their drug resistant properties provided the leukemia cells with a survival advantage.

In all, the team documented 20 relapse-specific mutations -- none of which had previously been implicated in ALL recurrences. Intriguingly, two patients harbored a mutation in the same gene, NT5C2, which encodes a protein that normally regulates some building blocks used to construct DNA but also can degrade an important class of drugs called purine analogues used in ALL therapy.

When the researchers fully sequenced the NT5C2 gene in 61 other cases in which pediatric ALL patients had relapsed, they found five more mutations that altered the gene's coding region. Further experiments suggested that these NT5C2 mutations all increased the protein's enzymatic activity, making the cancer cells more resistant to a chemotherapy treatment designed to force the cells to kill themselves. All seven patients with NT5C2 mutations relapsed within three years of the initial diagnosis -- an early, particularly hard-to-treat re-emergence likely mediated by the drug resistance.

Armed with the new knowledge, Dr. Carroll says doctors may be better equipped to identify patients likely to relapse. "We plan to test the feasibility of screening patients during therapy using sophisticated sequencing technology to pick up low-level mutations in NT5C2 and other genes indicating that a mutant clone is growing," he says. His team is researching whether that advance warning could allow doctors to administer separate drugs to beat back the cancer cells, and is also working on a strategy to directly inhibit the mutant enzyme.

The study co-authors include Julia A. Meyer, Jinhua Wang, Laura A. Hogan, Smita Dandekar, Zuojian Tang, Jiri Zavadil, Timothy Cardozo, Elizabeth Raetz, and Debra J. Morrison at NYU Langone Medical Center; Jun J. Yang and William E. Evans at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital; Jay P. Patel and Ross L. Levine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; Paul Zumbo, Sheng Li, and Christopher E. Mason at Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University; and Stephen. P. Hunger at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children's Hospital Colorado.

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute, with additional support from the American Society of Hematology and St. Baldrick's Foundation.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NYU Langone Medical Center, via Newswise.

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Journal Reference:

1. Linda Holmfeldt, Lei Wei, Ernesto Diaz-Flores, Michael Walsh, Jinghui Zhang, Li Ding, Debbie Payne-Turner, Michelle Churchman, Anna Andersson, Shann-Ching Chen, Kelly McCastlain, Jared Becksfort, Jing Ma, Gang Wu, Samir N Patel, Susan L Heatley, Letha A Phillips, Guangchun Song, John Easton, Matthew Parker, Xiang Chen, Michael Rusch, Kristy Boggs, Bhavin Vadodaria, Erin Hedlund, Christina Drenberg, Sharyn Baker, Deqing Pei, Cheng Cheng, Robert Huether, Charles Lu, Robert S Fulton, Lucinda L Fulton, Yashodhan Tabib, David J Dooling, Kerri Ochoa, Mark Minden, Ian D Lewis, L Bik To, Paula Marlton, Andrew W Roberts, Gordana Raca, Wendy Stock, Geoffrey Neale, Hans G Drexler, Ross A Dickins, David W Ellison, Sheila A Shurtleff, Ching-Hon Pui, Raul C Ribeiro, Meenakshi Devidas, Andrew J Carroll, Nyla A Heerema, Brent Wood, Michael J Borowitz, Julie M Gastier-Foster, Susana C Raimondi, Elaine R Mardis, Richard K Wilson, James R Downing, Stephen P Hunger, Mignon L Loh & Charles G Mullighan. The genomic landscape of hypodiploid acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Nature Genetics, 20 January 2013 DOI: 10.1038/ng.2532

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/genes/~3/RIQfsnIOAiE/130203145450.htm

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Atlanta Pastor Teaches Class on Healthy Gay Relationships and His ...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]He says Long should have made a confession about his sexuality instead of hiding behind people who will protect him. So, this gives us a better understanding of why Meredith is coming out with the 'Healthy Relationship ...

Source: http://www.atoast2wealth.com/2013/02/01/atlanta-pastor-teaches-class-on-healthy-gay-relationships-and-his-past-is-a-telling-story/

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Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in American men. In the United States...

Study sees prostate cancer treatment side effects

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A new study shows how important it is for men to carefully consider treatments for early-stage prostate cancer. Fifteen years after surgery or radiation treatment, nearly all of the older men in the study had some problems having sex.About one-fifth had bladder or bowel trouble, researchers found.Th...

Source: http://www.facebook.com/APNews/posts/330741420369842

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BlackBerry 10 garners praise, but no one seems to think it?s enough

BlackBerry Z10

BlackBerry 10 was introduced to the world on Wednesday and Wall Street was not impressed. RIM (RIMM), now rebranded as BlackBerry, saw its stock plummet 12% after having been propped up over the past couple weeks and it continued down another 6% in pre-market trading on Thursday. It?s not that people think BlackBerry 10 is awful, in fact the new OS has garnered a fair amount of praise so far. It?s just that no one seems to think BlackBerry?s new effort is enough to get the company back in the game.

[More from BGR: BlackBerry Z10 review]

?While we were impressed with the features of the new OS, we believe RIM has only closed the gap with more mature smartphone OS platforms and offered limited differentiating services or features to win back customers from more mature ecosystems,? Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley told clients in a note on Wednesday evening. ?Further, we believe the carrier pricing of the new Z10 smartphone versus competing high-end smartphones creates a tough environment for strong BB10 sales to turn around BlackBerry?s long term business trends.?

[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 browser smokes iOS 6 and Windows Phone 8 in comparison test [video]]

RBC Capital Markets? Mark Sue says skeptical investors needed more in order to be convinced BlackBerry 10 can thrive in the modern smartphone market. ?There are several things we like about BlackBerry 10 and its new devices, yet several things are missing and the timing of the U.S. launch means we?re reducing our initial CY13 unit expectations,? Sue wrote in a note on Thursday morning. He believes BlackBerry may not see stable earnings until 2015.

And according to market news site Benzinga, BlackBerry 10 bombed. ?BlackBerry has done absolutely nothing to genuinely inspire consumers to drop their existing phones for BB10. Not even a guy with a ponytail can change that.??Benzinga?writer?Louis Bedigian noted in a contribution to Forbes. ?Investors are no more impressed than the critics. Shares of RIM have plummeted roughly eight percent today, signaling an end to the tech stock that had become Wall Street?s new shining star.?

RBC maintained its Sector Perform rating on BlackBerry shares but trimmed its price target to $18 from $19, and?Cannacord?s Walkley reiterated his Sell rating with a $9 price target.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blackberry-10-garners-praise-no-one-seems-think-143006868.html

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PhoneClean Scans Your iOS Device to Reclaim Storage Space

Windows/Mac: Your iOS device has a limited amount of storage. It can store a lot of junk you don't need over time like temp files, scripts, and failed sync files. PhoneClean is an app that deletes all that junk for you.

All you need to do is launch PhoneClean, attach your iOS device to your computer, and click the "Start Scan" button. PhoneClean will dig through your device for a few minutes, and will give you a report on what it can safely delete. Check the boxes for the junk you want to delete, and PhoneClean does it. I didn't reclaim much space myself, but your mileage may vary.

PhoneClean (free) | iMobie via CNET

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/I6gT_wFdbWw/phoneclean-scans-your-ios-device-to-reclaim-storage-space

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