News: Super Bowl XLV Link Round-Up

Super Bowl 45 is upon us, which must mean it's time for our annual link round-up.

• First things first: Super Bowl? There's an app for that.
• On the field, the Green Bay Packers are facing off against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Detroit Free-Press runs you through both teams. The Boston Herald gives you five things to look for during the game. The Guardian profiles controversial Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, whilst the Seattle Times does the same for Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers. NPR takes a look at why the Steelers go in as underdogs, whilst @Salon.com (and, undoubtedly, many others) will be livetweeting the game.
• Good timing: looks like they found a copy of Super Bowl 1.
• As ever, the advertisements are attracting as much attention as the game. Entertainment Weekly and NBC Philadelphia preview the spots, The New York Times looks at Fox Sports' rejection of a faith based commercial, Slate looks at other banned adverts, and CNN examines if Super Bowl adverts are actually bad for your health.
• Talking about bad for your health, the New York Times highlights research which suggests it might be best to give the whole thing a miss:

This year, a study in the journal Clinical Cardiology released on Monday warns that a loss by the hometown team in the big game leads to “increased deaths in both men and women, and especially older patients.” One of the authors said in a press release that “stress reduction programs or certain medications might be appropriate in individual cases.”

• Never mind the spectators. The real health scare hovering over this year's Super Bowl is the ongoing "concussion crisis." Recent research has demonstrated that the repetitive impacts received by players on the football field are directly linked to degenerative brain damage. The New York Times has been following the story closely for some time, and the New Yorker recently published a long article on the subject by Ben McGrath, which asks pertinently, "Does football have a future?" It was also picked up by the New York Review of Books blog, which asserted even more pointedly: "There is the reality behind the Super Bowl—superb young bodies being broken, and irretrievable harm being done to brains." Food for thought as you're watching the game.