Metal

Brian Price, once a wrecking ball on UCLA's defensive line, has beaten long odds to return to the NFL after two off-season surgeries aimed at keeping his hamstrings attached to his pelvis, rather than breaking loose and coiling down the backs of his thighs. For Price, who will start at defensive tackle Sunday for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, his excruciating recovery was a 10-step process. Meaning just two months ago, he could run only 10 steps. "You have these doubts in your head at times," said Price, a second-round pick of the Buccaneers in 2010 who, because of his congenitally malformed pelvis, spent the last half of his rookie season on injured reserve.

Fashion jewelry design is in the midst of a renaissance the likes of which we haven't seen since the 1980s. And Alexis Bittar blazed the trail. In the last two decades, the New York-based jewelry designer has gone from selling his signature colorful, hand-carved Lucite pieces on the streets of SoHo to bejeweling leading ladies in Hollywood and beyond, including Lady Gaga, First Lady Michelle Obama, Madonna, Cameron Diaz, Meryl Streep and Rihanna....

Teas from across the globe are becoming more and more popular in the U.S. One relative newcomer, yerba mate, is attracting fans for its allegedly jitter-free caffeine boost and high antioxidant content. Lab research suggests some potential health benefits from drinking yerba mate, but studies of lifelong yerba mate drinkers in the tea's native South America suggest the brew increases the risk of some cancers -- a fact most marketing campaigns omit.

Metal contaminants in Southern California coastal waters have plummeted over the last four decades, according to a new study that attributes the cleaner water to 1970s environmental regulations. The improvements are so dramatic that, in some spots, USC researchers found the levels are now comparable to those found on remote stretches of the Baja California coastline. Researchers found a 100-fold drop in concentrations of lead and a 400-fold decline in copper and cadmium off the coast of Los Angeles County since the 1970s, even as the region's population grew by millions.

Metal particles from hip implants can get into the bloodstream, but it’s unclear whether the levels are high enough to cause problems—so the Food and Drug Administration wants implant makers to find out. The FDA issued orders on May 6 to 21 companies that make metal-on-metal hip systems asking them to further study the safety of their devices. In particular, cobalt and chromium may be getting into the bloodstream. Metal in the blood can cause problems elsewhere—the agency says on its website that small numbers of patients have had heart, nervous system or thyroid gland problems that may have been the result of metal ions in the bloodstream.

Fear of a shortage of rare-earth metals used in high-tech military and industrial products has spawned global efforts to reopen abandoned mines, including the formidable Mountain Pass Mine in California's Mojave Desert. Discovered in the 1940s by uranium prospectors, Mountain Pass contains an array of rare earths, including cerium and lanthanum, in concentrations almost double those found at the world's biggest rare-earth mine, China's Bayan Obo. "You're looking at the greatest rare-earth deposit in the world," says operations manager John Benfield as he ushers a visitor around the 2,200-acre site 60 miles southwest of Las Vegas.

John Flitcraft said that Motley Crue is just one of hundreds of fake heavy-metal bands (Calendar Letters, Dec. 7). Sorry, but no heavy-metal band is fake! They all have their own individuality. The look (hair, makeup, clothes) that metal performers show is a part of their individuality. No metal looks the same. The way they look is an expression of themselves. People who don't understand metal music just categorize it and call it trash. I'm not a total metaler, but I do enjoy it. Metalers are tired of being looked down on for how they look and what they listen to. If you don't like it, don't listen to it and don't criticize it. Keep rockin'.

I'm in complete agreement with Lysa Jacobs' June 3 letter to The Times regarding your predictably negative review of the Queensryche concert ("Queensryche Avoids Worst Metal Cliches; Music Is Still Boring" by Mike Boehm, May 15). It has always mystified me why The Times bothers to review heavy metal concerts at all. It is so obvious that your writers are completely clueless on the subject, and, as Lysa pointed out, they don't even like heavy metal. In the past two years, every one of your heavy metal reviews has been negative (with the exception of Metallica, where you misidentified the vocalist as Dave Mustaine of Megadeth)

Y&T has head-banged around the metal circuit for several years without coming within striking distance of a breakthrough. The Bay Area group's show Saturday at the Wiltern showed why. Basically, the band is dreadful! The foursome scooted around the stage with calculated spontaneity while playing clumsy, distended blowouts. Yet another band that probably thought "This Is Spinal Tap" was a straight documentary. Second-billed Ace Frehley's Comet proved to be a whole different kettle of metal.

Your article on the local metal scene barely mentioned speed-metal and instead focused on glam "scam" metal. By doing so you perpetuate the myth that all metal is commercial, illiterate nonsense and ensure a host of condescending letters from your readers. Speed metal is carrying on the spirit and adventuresomeness of the punk/hard-core movement and possesses imagination and sociopolitical views unbeknown to the glam scene. An example is the group Anthrax, which has invented thrash-rap and comments on the glam fashion movement in the lyrics to "Imitation of Life": I'd pass an image law / stick it in their face.

A new private space company is expected to be unveiled Tuesday at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. Planetary Resources Inc. is a Seattle company that intends to mine near-Earth asteroids for raw materials ranging from water to precious metals. “There are precious metals in near-infinite quantities in space. When the availability of these metals increase, the cost will reduce on everything including defibrillators, hand-held devices, TV and computer monitors, catalysts; and with the abundance of these metals we'll be able to use them in mass production,” Peter H. Diamandis, co-founder and co-chairman, said in a statement.

NEW DELHI - The children didn't notice the ravens and occasional vulture circling overhead, or the stream of black ooze that flowed nearby, or the inescapable stench of decay. They were squealing over a 4-cent ride on a small, hand-powered Ferris wheel. The kids are growing up in New Delhi's 70-acre Ghazipur landfill, a post-apocalyptic world where hundreds of pickers climb a 100-foot-high trash pile daily, dodging and occasionally dying beneath belching bulldozers that reshape the putrid landscape.

If Apple does use metallic glass in its next iPhone, you might not have to keep hiding the device from your toddler and clumsy cousin and actually hand it over to them with some confidence.  That's because it takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Liquidmetal, or metallic glass, looks like glass but is far from fragile. It can resist bending, scratching, denting and shattering, according to the scientists responsible. We spoke with William Johnson and Marios Demetriou, the lead researchers on this material at Caltech, as Liquidmetal gets renewed attention following a report in Korean IT News that Apple is experimenting with it for upcoming devices.

MUSIC The Dublin-based Mexican acoustic guitar duo Rodrigo Y Gabriela will appear at the Hollywood Palladium in support of their new album, "Area 52. " They're known for speed-metal inspired shredding but have broadened their palette in recent years. C.U.B.A. opens. Hollywood Palladium, 6215 Sunset Blvd, Hollywood. 8 p.m. Sat. $53. http://www.livenation.com.

Consumer Reports has criticized the safety testing that went into the Lap-Band weight-loss device, raising concerns about poor regulatory oversight of medical equipment implanted in U.S. patients. In a report issued Wednesday the consumer magazine also expressed concerns about risks related to surgical mesh, metal hips and certain cardiac devices. It highlighted how the federal government allows some products to be sold with little or no advance safety testing. Consumer Reports questioned the effectiveness of Allergan Inc.'s Lap-Band product and said government approval was based on a clinical study of only 299 patients.

Naomi Wormell is a vicar, not a vigilante. But these days, she finds it hard to choose Christian charity over some swift -- and terrible -- retribution. The centuries-old church she leads in this quiet English village has fallen victim to a plague sweeping across Britain. Like hungry locusts, metal thieves have repeatedly attacked St. Mary's Church, swooping down on its roof in the dead of night and stripping away large sections of its Victorian-era lead cladding. Six times over a four-month period, the heartsick residents of Hatfield Broad Oak awoke to discover yet another piece of their history stolen, most likely to be melted down and sold for scrap.

Being loud isn't nearly enough in heavy metal. A bad attitude helps, but for the bands collected under Megadeth's touring mini-festival Gigantour, some distinctive style and vision made all the difference Friday at the Gibson Amphitheatre. Though each of the three top-billed acts — Megadeth, Motorhead and Volbeat — were dependably loud, confrontational and contained elements of classic metal and punk, each delivered something vastly different from the next. While headliner Megadeth stood in front of a big wall of Marshall amplifiers, the real power was less in volume than in the details of the band's dense sound.

Reporting from San Francisco -- Jerry Lee ran his battered hand along the side beam of a 35-foot extension ladder. This particular workhorse of the San Francisco Fire Department — from Truck 5, Station 5 — was showing serious wear and tear. It had been dropped on the job in the middle of January and could no longer be trusted to bear a firefighter's weight. "There's a crack they're concerned about," Lee said, tracing the offending scar with his thumbnail. "I'll open the break so I can get some glue in there.