Hotels In Davis Ca

Al Michaels, Special to SI.com

With Peter King on summer vacation, legendary broadcaster Al Michaels agreed to write today's Monday Morning Quarterback column and discusses the nation's thirst for football, the good and bad of hotels and more.

It was at an ABC affiliates' meeting in 1989, in a ballroom at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, that a tape was rolled in front of some 500 television station executives. Its purpose was to get the assembled group stirred about a football season that was still some three months away.

These meetings always feature preview looks at a network's upcoming fall lineup and are designed to get the affiliate body enthused about the to-debut-in-September products. I've been to dozens of these dog-and-pony fests. Most of the presentations involving the upcoming dramas and comedies and made-for-TV movies are usually met with responses that range from polite applause to utter boredom. Then there was this one.

It was a six or seven minute clip that featured highlights from the prior Monday Night Football season. But what set off the most incredible scene I've ever witnessed at one of these affairs was the way the tape opened. There, from the world of country music, stood Hank Williams to ask, "Are you ready for some football?" That's how Hank's now-iconic ditty was born. The place went wild.

This was in June. If that affiliate body could have opened up the season that night, they would have scrapped every other show on their schedules. And over the last 22 years, the answer to Hank's question, across the length and breadth of the United States and into every hamlet, mountain ranger station and goat farm, has been a resounding "YES!!"

I love baseball -- built the early part of my career around it -- but there can't be a sliver of doubt in anyone's mind that football, particularly NFL football, trumps all. The television ratings are spectacular. Sunday Night Football was the No. 1 ranked show in all of television last season. Super Bowl Sunday might as well be declared a national holiday.

And what still amazes me is how a 16-game season can be turned into a 365-day gabfest. That means (excluding playoff games, but including four preseason games) there are 345 NON-game days a year for each team, and fans STILL almost daily think and talk and argue and obsess over their teams.

There are times when I talk to fans and feel that an autumn without football would lead to some small form of a national nervous breakdown. One thing I do know: When this labor dispute is over, either the owners or the players will have won the negotiation game on the equivalent of an overtime field goal. But one team will have won the game within the game by about 71-0. The lawyers. Just bill those hours, baby.

$100000 awarded to UC Davis stem cell researcher - Roseville ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) - Paul Knoepfler, an associate professor of cell biology and human anatomy at UC Davis School of Medicine, has received a $100,000 grant from the St. Baldrick's Foundation to investigate the molecular causes of brain tumors in children.

The foundation, perhaps best known for its signature head-shaving fundraising events, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting childhood cancer research.

Knoepfler is exploring the hypothesis that a certain factor -- the oncogene N-Myc - causes a deadly brain cancer as well as other childhood tumors by locking in the abnormal development of certain neural stem cells. His research is focusing on a possible aberrant mechanism that leads to medulloblastomas, the most common form of malignant brain tumors in children. The tumors are more prevalent in children under the age of 5, and are found more often in males than females.

"The problem in medulloblastomas is that for some reason the neural stem cells appear to have an accelerator, but no brake," said Knoepfler, who also holds a position at the Institute for Pediatric Regenerative Medicine at Shriners Hospital for Children-Northern California. "Once a normal stem cell mutates into a cancer stem cell, it continues to rapidly grow and develop in its cancerous form. Our preliminary data point to N-Myc doing double duty as a 'molecular villain,' punching the accelerator and releasing the brakes in these cells, thus driving the formation of tumors. I'm hoping to come up with new treatments by identifying a way to harness these troubling cellular activities."

According to National Cancer Institute, medulloblastomas, although rare, are a common brain tumor in children and responsible for up to 25 percent of all pediatric brain cancers. Nationally, about 500 cases are diagnosed annually. They usually occur in children before the age of 10. The tumors arise in the part of the brain (cerebellum) that controls balance and other complex motor functions.

Knoepfler, who is a cancer survivor himself, specializes in regenerative medicine and cancer-related research. Some of his work focuses on understanding how stem cells are programmed and how that programming can go awry, thereby causing birth defects or cancer. He specifically has analyzed the epigenetic changes in stem cells - the mechanisms, apart from mutations, by which environment influences gene expression and may lead to tumors or birth defects.

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