The , which is about 40 seconds long, combines 64 radar images taken Wednesday and Thursday (Dec. 12 and 13) by NASA's Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, Calif. On those days, Toutatis was about 4.3 million miles (7 million kilometers) from Earth, or about 18 times farther away than the moon is.

The new radar images which have a resolution of 12 feet (3.75 meters) per pixel show the 3-mile-wide (5 kilometers)in striking detail. Toutatis is revealed to be an elongated, irregularly shaped object with multiple ridges, researchers said. Strange bright glints may indicate surface boulders, they added.

The video also sheds light on how Toutatis moves. The asteroid spins about its long axis every 5.4 days and wobbles through space like a badly thrown football, scientists said.

Toutatis never posed aon its recent flyby, and researchers say there is no chance it will hit our planet over the next four centuries or so. (Beyond that time, the asteroid's orbit cannot be accurately computed.)

Nevertheless, the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., lists Toutatis as a potentially hazardous object, meaning that it could pose a risk to Earth at some point in the future.

Toutatis would cause catastrophic damage if it ever did slam into Earth, potentially extinguishing humanity and many other species. In general, scientists think a strike by anything at least 0.6 miles (1 km) wide could have global consequences, most likely by altering the world's climate for many years to come.

For comparison, the asteroid thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was an estimated 6 miles (10 km) across.

Asteroid Toutatis makes one trip around the sun every four years. Its next close encounter with Earth will come in November 2069, when the space rock will fly safely by at about 1.8 million miles (3 million km), or 7.7 Earth-moon distances.

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"This will be my last ride," Lewis, 37, said in a statement.

The AFC North champion Ravens are hosting the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday in the opening round of the playoffs, but it was not yet certain Lewis would be activated for the game.

Lewis has not played since he tore his triceps during a Week Six win over the Dallas Cowboys in October.

The inside linebacker, twice the NFL Defensive Player of the Year and most valuable player in Baltimore's 2001 Super Bowls, issued his statement after addressing team mates.

"I can't picture Baltimore without him," running back Ray Rice told reporters about the Ravens' first-round pick of the 1996 NFL draft, who spent his entire 17-year career with the Ravens.

As word of Lewis's retirement spread tributes poured in from across the league on social media from both past and present players.

"I'd like to take a moment to honor a great career and player in @raylewis a worthy opponent," praised Detroit Lions Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders on his Twitter account.

"Best Overall LBer and Leader in NFL history," echoed former-New York Giants linebacker Antonio Pierce.

Lewis has long been the inspirational heart of the Ravens, firing up the team mates as they huddled around him before the opening kickoff, and then leading by example with his furious play on the gridiron.

"I talked to my team today and I talked to them about life in general. Everything that starts has an end. It's just life," said Lewis, who said he was at peace with his decision and was looking forward to spending more time with his two sons.

"I've done it, man. There's no accolade that I don't have individually but I've never played the game for individual stats. I've only played the game to make my team be a better team."

Lewis went from a scary low to the heights of the National Football League in one year after he was held in an Atlanta jail in the early morning hours after the 2000 Super Bowl, linked to a double-killing outside a nightclub.

By May, the matter was settled when Lewis pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of obstruction of justice and was fined $250,000 by the NFL.

One year after the fatal incident, Lewis was named MVP of Baltimore's Super Bowl triumph over the New York Giants in Tampa as the unquestioned leader of a defense that set a record for fewest points allowed in a 16-game season.

Lewis said he intends to play when the Ravens host the Colts in what would likely be his last game in Baltimore, since the team enters the playoffs as the fourth-seeded team in the AFC.

His next football stop is bound to be in Canton, Ohio, for enshrinement to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

(Reporting by Larry Fine in New York, Editing by Steve Keating in Toronto.)

Hey, no doubt, it went better than Lance's.

First up on sports' yearlong ride:

An unrelenting Crimson Tide.

JoePa makes his great migration

Trailed by heartache, litigation.

Eli's coming and Giants roll

Past Brady in the Super Bowl.

Suddenly, all's Linsanity:

Headlines, puns, sheer inanity.

Banned Ryan Braun left fans aghast.

An arbiter says not so fast.

Daytona, Kenseth - let's explain:

The night sets fire to the rain.

Then football gets its jolt of jolts

When Peyton's place is not with Colts.

Tebow leaves the Mile High air

And joins the Jets - a time for prayer.

Kentucky wins, backed by Davis.

Rent a team (call Hertz or Avis).

Baylor follows. Need a reason?

Brittney Griner, perfect season.

Ozzie Guillen, with much to tell,

Sings loving praises of Fidel.

The shaken Saints now turn to Vitt.

Pat Summitt says it's time to quit.

Out at Indy, sitting pretty,

Once again it's all Franchitti.

Pro football vets demand their due.

Concussed and angry, thousands sue.

I'll Have Another's path seems clear,

But still no Triple Crown this year.

Wait a second. Can this be right?

Manny Pacquiao lost a fight?

Lord Stanley's Cup goes to the Kings

While hockey's woes wait in the wings.

After all the sound and fury,

Clemens walks, cleared by a jury.

The Heat are champs. It looks like reign.

South Beach party - LeBron and Dwyane.

Sandusky's jury has its say:

This coach won't see the light of day.

Soccer's armada, mighty Spain,

Captures the Euros in Ukraine.

Come Wimbledon, Serena's crown.

Paterno's statue taken down.

Then Wiggins rides with guile and grit.

The Tour de France goes to a Brit.

Olympics start, McCartney sings.

Phelps swims with gills, Bolt soars with wings.

Pistorius runs, Gabby's great.

A specter looms: Badmintongate.

Brilliant games, with heart and brio.

Snuff the flame and on to Rio.

Augusta bends. How awfully nice.

A female member - Condi Rice.

Lance lambasted for all to see,

His lies unfold as sponsors flee,

His titles stripped, life off its hinge.

Now it's all about the syringe.

Perfect time to make this wager:

Andy Murray wins a major.

The NHL then shuts its door.

(I think we've heard this song before.)

Replacement refs prove one big mess.

The league is forced to acquiesce.

Ryder Cup comes to Medinah.

Europe gives U.S. angina.

Hold no vote, form no committee -

Washington's a baseball city.

Those Oakland A's, no hand-me-down.

Miguel Cabrera, Triple Crown.

Buster Posey and Hunter Pence.

This really doesn't make much sense.

The Giants sweep to take it all.

Black and orange, the style for fall.

No marathon, New York City.

Sandy strikes and shows no pity.

Colts ride a wave of splendid Luck.

They shave their heads and play for Chuck.

The Lakers stumble, won't sit still,

Sign Mike D'Antoni, pass on Phil.

Keselowski, Penske Sprint to Cup.

Notre Dame, 'Bama, coming up.

College conferences realign,

In thrall to TV's dollar sign.

Maryland, Rutgers, Big Ten bound.

The money chase goes round and round.

The Chiefs and Cowboys reel from blows.

The NFL's in mourning clothes.

Johnny Football wins Heisman race.

Pacquiao's crushed, flat on his face.

The year is quickly put to bed,

With what's been done and what's been said,

While limbering up sight unseen

For what's on deck ... 2013.

As the men continued talking, Sprecher grew bolder, instead suggesting that ICE buy NYSE in what became an $8.2 billion deal announced on Thursday.

The deal will link up two powerful derivatives exchange and clearing house operators, but threatens to further reduce the clout of the New York Stock Exchange. While the New York Stock Exchangehas stood for 200 years as an iconic symbol of U.S. capitalism, it is almost an afterthought in this deal.

For ICE, the crown jewel of NYSE Euronext is Liffe, Europe's second-largest derivatives market, analysts said. Niederauer had long felt that NYSE's shareholders did not appreciate the true value of the London-based futures and options exchange, and had talked to bankers about how to improve NYSE's stock price, a person familiar with the matter said.

Liffe will help ICE compete against U.S.-based CME Group,owner of the Chicago Board of Trade. Derivatives trading remains highly profitable for the exchanges, and new rules next year will dramatically expand the demand for clearing over-the-counter contracts.

The stock market businesses are less valuable to ICE. The company said it will try to spin off the Euronext European stock market businesses in a public offering, generating speculation it may also have little interest in the NYSE trading floor. Profits from stock trading have been significantly eroded by new technology and the rise of other places for investors to trade, including venues known as "dark pools."

ICE's Sprecher will be CEO of the combined organization, and the NYSE Euronext CEO will be president, a ceremonial title at many U.S. companies. In an interview, Niederauer said he would remain at least through 2014 as an "important senior member" of Sprecher's management team.

Niederauer will also be CEO of the NYSE Group. The combined company will be based in New York and Atlanta, where ICE is headqurtered.

Sprecher and Niederauerhave been friends for years, but the two stopped talking for about six weeks in 2011 when ICE teamed up with Nasdaq OMX Groupto make an unsolicited bid for NYSE Euronext. That bid came even as the New York Stock Exchange operator was trying to sell itself to Deutsche Bourse . Regulatory concerns killed both deals.

Without the Nasdaq or Deutsche Bourse's huge equity operations, ICE alone has far less overlapping business and should face easy approvals, antitrust lawyers said.

The deal values each NYSE Euronext share at $33.12, a 28 percent premium to the stock's closing price on Wednesday. NYSE Euronext stock rose 34 percent to end at $32.25 on Thursday. ICE's shares fell as much as 4 percent but finished regular trading at $127.60, up 1.4 percent on the day.

ICE said it would pay annual dividends of $300 million to the companies' shareholders once the deal closes, about what NYSE pays its shareholders now.

IN THE DOLDRUMS

The deal reflected Niederauer's inability to get his company's share price out of the doldrums. Before the latest ICE offer emerged, NYSE Euronext's shares had fallen by nearly a third since ICE and Nasdaq launched their thwarted joint bid.

Further consolidation of exchanges was "inevitable" and ICE was a "great partner," Niederauer said on a call with analysts, so continuing on alone did not make sense.

"We can sit here and keep slugging away and keep working hard, but the bottom line is we had not delivered, in my mind, sufficient returns to shareholders," Niederauer said. NYSE bought Euronext, including Liffe, for 8 billion euros in 2007.

Sprecher incorporated the stalled stock price - and the unrecognized value of Liffe - as part of his pitch.

"The reason that we were prepared to pay $33 a share for a company that was trading at $24 a share was that there is a $33 company in here and the market was just not either seeing it or willing to give credit for," he said in an interview. "We said, 'let's just force the credit.'"

The two sides negotiated in secret for about eight to 10 weeks, the two CEOs said. In options markets, there were some signs that word might have leaked out, with a sudden upswing in the demand for call options on NYSE, which perform well when a company's share price rises.

ICE started out as an online marketplace for energy trading before Sprecher initiated a string of acquisitions from the London-based International Petroleum Exchange in 2001, to the New York Board of Trade and, most recently, a handful of smaller deals, including a climate exchange and a stake in a Brazilian clearing house.

ICE's current main operations are in energy futures trading and, it has steered clear of stocks and stock-options trading, key businesses for NYSE Euronext.

"This deal is probably not going to generate a lot of concern from an antitrust perspective," said Warren Rosborough, a veteran of the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust division who is now with the law firm McDermott Will & Emery.

In clearing, ICE has a popular U.S. over-the-counter and listed business, while Liffe's operation is strong in futures and based in Europe.

Concerns over a small amount of competing derivatives business could be addressed with straightforward divestitures, Rosborough said. "It's an open question about whether it will generate questions," he added. "If there is a fix, it will be relatively easy fix."

Sprecher said the deal had been "well received" by regulators after he and Niederauer completed a "whirlwind tour" in the United States and Europe ahead of Thursday's announcement. Officials at the European Commission, the Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission declined to comment.

Last year, Justice Department objections blocked ICE and Nasdaq OMX's $11 billion bid on concerns the tie-up would dominate U.S. stock listings. The rival $9.3 billion bid by Deutsche Boerse fell afoul of European regulators.

A combined ICE-NYSE Euronext would leap-frog Deutsche Boerseto become the world's third-largest exchange group with a combined market value of $15.2 billion. CME Group has a market value of $17.5 billion, Thomson Reuters data shows.

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearingis the world's largest exchange group with a market cap of $19.5 billion.

ICE said it expected to achieve $450 million in cost savings from the takeover. In the first year after the deal closes, additional earnings of 15 percent are expected.

Long-time Wall Street traders saw the potential takeover of the venerable stock exchange by a 12-year-old derivatives upstart as fraught with symbolism.

"It's the end of an era," said a director on the board of a rival exchange who did not have clearance to speak to the press and asked not to be named. "I think ultimately the floor will be closed, because Jeff (Sprecher) has shut every floor he's ever had," the person said.

With the deal still a long way from completed, Sprecher and Niederauer said they planned to keep the high-profile NYSE trading floor running. "The floor has value and in particular, it has a lot of brand value," Niederauer said. "So we are committed. Jeff is committed."

The exchange was prepared to shut down the floor temporarily during superstorm Sandy and trade completely electronically, Wall Street executives said.

Shareholders will have the option of accepting $33.12 in cash per NYSE Euronext share or 0.2581 ICE share or a mix of $11.27 in cash and 0.1703 ICE share, subject to a maximum cash consideration of $2.7 billion.

Morgan Stanleywas the lead financial adviser to ICE, with assistance from BMO Capital Markets Corp, Broadhaven Capital Partners, JPMorgan Chase & Co , Lazard Group LLC , Societe Generale Corporate & Investment Banking, and Wells Fargo Securities LLC . ICE legal advisers are Sullivan & Cromwell LLP and Shearman & Sterling LLP.

The main financial advisers to NYSE Euronext are Perella Weinberg Partners and BNP Paribas. Further financial advice to NYSE Euronext was provided by Blackstone Advisory Partners, Citigroup , Goldman Sachs & Co.and Moelis & Co. Legal advisers to NYSE Euronext are Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, Slaughter & May, and Stibbe NV.

(Additional reporting by Luke Jeffs and David Brough in London, Jessica Toonkel, Jed Horowitz, Jonathan Spicer, David Gaffen and Karen Brettell in New York, Sarah N. Lynch and Diane Bartz in Washington and Ann Saphir in Chicago; writing by Carmel Crimmins and Aaron Pressman; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Steve Orlofsky)

In New York City and on Long Island, the ASPCA has rescued more than 300 animals and treated or provided supplies to about 13,000, working with government and private animal welfare agencies, said spokeswoman Emily Schneider.

City shelters took in about 400 animals along with their families in the first days after Sandy, Schneider said. There are now more than 100 in shelters with their owners, and a mobile animal medical clinic is cruising decimated neighborhoods in Queens' Rockaways and on Staten Island.

In New Jersey, the Humane Society deployed dozens of first responders using mobile units and boats to bring in about 60 displaced animals each day on the barrier islands hit by the storm.

The absence of animals that were lost or separated from their owners only adds to families' feelings of displacement and trauma, said members of emergency crews trying to rescue both.

Two weeks after Sandy made landfall on the Atlantic shore, followed a week later by a nor'easter, search-and-rescue teams were led by Animal Care & Control of NYC, a city-contracted nonprofit responding to hotline calls about pets in distress. Callers are owners forced to leave animals behind or unable to care for them, or people who see them wandering in hard-hit areas.

A Manhattan shelter takes in animals round the clock, hoping for owners to show up.

And social media teams scour the Internet for reports of lost pets, helping reunite them with owners.

Rescuing animals is mandatory under federal law, which requires local and state governments to include plans for pets in emergency procedures. Federal Emergency Management Agency funds go toward the welfare of animals in disaster zones.

New York City's human shelters are required to accept pets, and so are taxis and public transportation.

Some find it hard to understand why animals are a key concern in disasters engulfing human lives, but owners feel an attachment and responsibility to their pets, said Niki Dawson, director of disaster services for the Washington, D.C.-based Humane Society of the United States.

"There's such a strong bond between people and animals that people will put their lives at risk not to leave a pet behind," Dawson said. "So they stay, even when they're told to evacuate, and that puts first responders going back for them at risk."

More than 200 dogs, cats and other pets from a devastated area of New York's Long Island are being sheltered in the gymnasium of a community college. Many belong to owners in nearby shelters and hotels.

Celebrity chef Rachael Ray is donating $500,000 to the ASPCA to help pets and families struggling to rebound from Superstorm Sandy. She said her pet food brand, Nutrish, is also shipping 4 tons of wet and dry dog food for Sandy animals, and her Yum-o! organization is donating $100,000 to City Harvest and the Food Bank for New York City.

The ASPCA will use the money to lease a building to board Sandy animals till their owners can take care of them.

Schwartz and Scooter, two black felines, came from a home that was flooded with water 5 feet deep, dark and cold in Long Beach, a heavily damaged barrier island community.

On Kate and Warren Sherwood's block, five houses were burned to the ground.

"We barely got out of our house in time," Kate Sherwood said.

They took refuge at a hotel that didn't accept cats.

"We sneaked them in and put a 'do not disturb' sign on the door pretending we're on our honeymoon," said Warren Sherwood, 56, a systems analyst. "But after three days, they got restless and starting meowing."

The couple took them to the Nassau gym shelter, run by the North Shore Animal League America, the nation's largest no-kill rescue and adoption organization.

"We're ridiculously stressed out, we're freaked out," said Warren Sherwood. "But I'd do anything in the world for these people who are keeping our cats alive."

Also among the pets in the gym was Emma, a Manchester terrier that swam to safety through flooded streets in Freeport on Long Island, while its owners carried their cats above the water, plus some clothes they grabbed at the last minute.

"We lost our house. It's submerged," said Mark Swing, who fled with his girlfriend as the tides rose. "All we got out was our four cats and the dog, except for a few changes of clothes."

The 8-year-old terrier was "a little tired, but fine," said Swing, 48, a contractor who was in a Red Cross shelter.

Cats and dogs weren't the only pets rescued from the storms.

"We're finding chinchillas, guinea pigs, rabbits, reptiles, birds," said Dawson.

And then, there was the tarantula, left behind in the New York City borough of Staten Island, in a home inspectors deemed uninhabitable.

The spider belonged to a teenage boy who was also attached to his gerbils. He and his family were forced to evacuate.

His aunt in Brooklyn agreed to take in the gerbils, but no one wanted the hairy tarantula. The teen left it behind with lots of food in hopes the spider could be retrieved later.

Like their owners, many animals that survived won't go home anytime soon. They're being housed and fed thanks to the kindness of strangers.

Transport trailers distributed pet food and supplies like crates, leashes and litter from a warehouse in Queens set up days before Sandy descended, said Schneider. Tons of food is being trucked in, donated by Petsmart Charities, Iams, Del Monte Foods, Purina and the Petco Foundation.

It will be months before any estimates are available as to how many pets might have died or were lost during New York's double storms.

Dawson says she's seen people stuck in shelters, wearing donated clothing, with no idea when they'll go home. But when they turn to their dog or cat, "their faces light up."

And that, she says, is why animals matter amid a human disaster.

The White House said in a statement Obama will speak at a 7 p.m. EST Sunday interfaith vigil for families of the victims and other students from Sandy Hook Elementary School, which was attacked on Friday by a heavily armed gunman.

In his weekly radio and internet address earlier on Saturday, Obama said it was time to "take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this."

But he stopped short of specifically calling for tighter gun-control laws.

(Reporting By David Alexander; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Eric Walsh)

Although the experts have only conducted studies on the gene Arih2 using mice, they hope it can be used as a target for drugs eventually to fight a spectrum of incurable diseases.

Lead author Marc Pellegrini at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Australia said the gene appears to act like a switch, flipping the immune system on and off.

"If the gene is on, it dampens ... the immune response. And if you switch it off, it greatly enhances immune responses," Pellegrini said in a telephone interview.

"It is probably one of the few genes and pathways that is very targetable and could lead to a drug very quickly."

Arih2 was first identified by another group of scientists in the fruit fly but it drew the interest of Pellegrini's team because of its suspected links to the immune system.

In a paper published in Nature Immunology, Pellegrini and his team described how mice embryos died when the gene was removed.

Next, they removed the gene from adult mice and noticed how their immune systems were boosted for a short period of time. But it quickly went into an overdrive and started attacking the rodents' own healthy cells, skin and organs.

"The mice survived for six weeks quite well. Then they started developing this very hyperactive immune responses and if you leave it for too long, it starts reacting against the body itself," Pellegrini said.

Pellegrini and his colleagues hope that scientists can study the gene further and use it as a drug target to fight a large spectrum of diseases.

"It's like an accelerator. In infectious diseases, you want to slam on the brakes on this gene, and for autoimmune diseases, you want to push the accelerator to make it work much harder to stop the whole immune response," said Pellegrini.

"The more the gene works, the less of an immune response there is. And the less active the gene is, the more the immune response is."

(Reporting by Tan Ee Lyn; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Dr. H. Wayne Carver said at a news conference Saturday the deaths are classified as homicides. He says he believes "everybody was hit more than once."

Friday's massacre of 26 children and adults at the elementary school has elicited horror and soul-searching around the world.

Investigators are trying to learn more about 20-year-old gunman Adam Lanza. They've questioned his older brother, who's not believed to have been involved in the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary in prosperous Newtown, 60 miles northeast of New York City.

Hundreds of people in the tight-knit community packed a church Friday in a vigil for the victims, including 20 children. Monsignor Robert Weiss says these were "just beautiful, beautiful children."

So-called nonrefractive vision impairment - which includes glaucoma and cataracts - can't be corrected with glasses, and typically requires laser therapy or surgery. It can also lead to permanent vision loss in some cases, especially when the problem isn't identified or treated in a timely fashion.

"These are really dramatic findings, and they're kind of the tip of the iceberg of what's coming ahead," said Dr. David Friedman from the Wilmer Eye Institute of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, who worked on the study.

The researchers said that as diabetes rates continue to rise - and hit younger and younger people - some complications tied to the disease are expected to spike as well. Vision loss is especially a concern among people who have had diabetes for ten years or more.

Using data from a national health and nutrition study, Friedman's team found 1.4 percent of the 9,471 adults examined in 1999 through 2002 had nonrefractive vision impairment. That compared to 1.7 percent of the 10,480 people tested in 2005 through 2008.

Over that time, the number of study subjects who'd had diabetes for at least ten years also increased, from 2.8 percent to 3.6 percent. Among adults younger than 40, that figure more than doubled - from 0.3 percent to 0.7 percent.

The study can't prove diabetes was behind the rise in vision problems.

However, everything else linked to a higher risk of nonrefractive vision impairment - such as poverty and lack of education - was the same or better in the later study population compared to the earlier one, the researchers wrote Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"The only (association) that got worse and got dramatically worse is diabetes, and not just diabetes, but diabetes for a long time," Friedman told Reuters Health.

'A REALLY ALARMING SIGN'

Vision problems related to diabetes develop when fluid accumulates in the retina, making it blurry, or when new blood vessels grow in the back of the eye due to lack of oxygen.

The type of vision loss measured in the study - worse than 20/40 in both eyes - isn't blindness, according to Friedman, but would make it harder for people to live independently and would mean many couldn't get an unrestricted driver's license.

"This is a really alarming sign," said David Musch, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center in Ann Arbor, who co-wrote an editorial published with the study.

"This is probably only one of a number of signs that will be evident in the near future if we continue to have young children and adolescents be overweight and obese," he told Reuters Health, noting that more kids and adolescents are being diagnosed with what used to be considered "adult-onset" diabetes.

"This is a message to vision care providers that they're going to be seeing a lot more of these complications among a younger population," Musch added.

Friedman said screening everyone with diabetes for vision problems, as is done in England, can almost completely eliminate blindness related to the condition. However, only about half of diabetics in the U.S. currently get their eyes checked regularly.

"Hopefully what this article will do is raise awareness and in part increase the screening rate," he said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/JjFzqx Journal of the American Medical Association, online December 11, 2012.