Helmets

Reporting from South Bend, Ind. -- USC faces Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., on Saturday. The rivalry has a long history, and the Fighting Irish will be flashing a little something extra this time around – gold-flaked helmets, 80,000 'rally towels,' maybe a twist on the uniform. But, Coach Brian Kelly insists, it's not like they planned anything special. It's only a coincidence, Notre Dame Coach Brian Kelly insists. Nothing special. No extra planning was involved.

As scientists confirm that football and other high-impact sports can leave lasting brain damage, companies are marketing "anti-concussion" equipment to coaches, parents and children that, neurologists say, probably does not work. "I wish there was such a product on the market," Jeffrey Kutcher, chairman of the American Academy of Neurology's sports section, said at a Senate hearing Wednesday. "The simple truth is that no current helmet, mouth guard, headband or other piece of equipment can significantly prevent concussions from occurring.

Dunta Robinson hit. And the NFL hit back. The league Monday fined the Atlanta Falcons cornerback $40,000 for his helmet-to-helmet hit on Philadelphia's Jeremy Maclin, reasoning the receiver was in a "defenseless posture" having just made a catch an instant before. The hit came with 6 minutes 12 seconds to play in the third quarter, as Maclin was running across the middle with the ball. Robinson blasted his helmet into Maclin's, flattening the receiver. Maclin lay on the turf for several seconds and got up slowly but was able to return to the game.

Former state Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd, a tough-talking Democrat with a penchant for salty speech who was best known for championing a bill that requires motorcyclists to wear helmets, died Thursday. He was 80. Floyd, who represented the South Bay area in the Legislature from 1980 to 1992 and from 1996 to 2000, died at his Sacramento home of complications related to diabetes, said Martha Felix, his companion. Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles) called Floyd "one of the legendary figures of California politics.

Locked up, badly Re "The hidden hunger strike," Editorial, July 20 Thank you for your continued coverage of the hunger strike by California prisoners. California's prisons are perpetuating a system in which violence breeds more violence, thereby making our society less rather than more safe. No one has to condone the crimes that led these men to prison to be appalled at conditions of confinement that are tantamount to torture. As taxpayers and voters, these abuses are being committed in our name, and we should stop them.

The Rev. Philip Ryan knows a lot can go wrong during the annual Lake County Passion Play. Chariot wheels stick in the grass. Sheep balk at taking direction. Fake blood doesn't splatter properly during crucial whipping scenes. "It's always something," Ryan, 79, said in a soft Irish brogue, his heavy gray eyebrows furrowing. "There are an awful lot of little things that have to go right. " And that's in a good year. This spring, with Lake County struggling with foreclosures, bankruptcies and one of the highest unemployment rates in California, Ryan said the level of difficulty in staging the religious spectacle of Christ's final days went up several notches.

For some outdoor enthusiasts, the age-old question, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" has been replaced by "Did we actually have any fun on our rockin' mountain biking/kayaking/rock climbing adventure if we didn't get it on video?" Simple and rugged, wearable cameras have been proliferating on the market, recording video from a perch on one's helmet, chest or handlebars. Watching and editing is simple; just plug the units' USB cords into a computer to turn your high-adrenaline pursuits into home movies.

It is the "signature wound" of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars: traumatic brain injury from the blast of the enemy's improvised explosive devices. Now two researchers say that minor changes in the military's combat helmet could reduce the incidence and severity of these injuries. Using complex computer modeling to determine the impact of such blasts on helmets, physicist Willy Moss and mechanical engineer Michael King of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Northern California concluded that soldiers and Marines would be better protected by wearing a slightly larger helmet with 1/8 inch more foam padding.

The explosive growth of triathlons ? the number of participants has doubled in the last three years to 1.2 million ? has also had an explosive effect on sports technology. Every triathlete, no matter the age or ability, is a racer ? and practically every racer is a gearhead, lusting after innovations that will help him or her go faster. Since money is often no object for the swim-bike-run crowd, product designers with far-out idea are working overtime. Here's what they've come up with lately.

Professional skiers and snowboarders wear helmets. And if you don’t wear one too, you’re running out of excuses. So say a trio of researchers from the University of Innsbruck’s Department of Sport Science in Austria. Writing in an editorial this week in the British Medical Journal, they weigh the pros (many) and cons (few) of wearing protective headgear on the slopes. Emergency room doctors and ski patrol rescuers say that between 9% and 19% of skiing and snowboarding injuries are head injuries.