NOTEBOOK

By KATHLEEN ADAMS, JANICE M. HOROWITZ, LINA LOFARO, EMILY MITCHELL, MEGAN RUTHERFORD AND ALAIN L. SANDERS

WINNERS & LOSERS

IN THE PRE-SUPER BOWL BALLYHOO, HYPE, HOOPLA & HUBBUB...

[WINNERS]

BOB DOLE A milk mustache, a fling with Air France and now a Super Bowl commercial for Visa

BRETT FAVRE Fit, fleet, favored. And he hails from next door to the Dome: Mississippi

JAMBALAYA Hold the clam chowder! They're hungry in Beantown, and they're craving creole cuisine

[& LOSERS]

ANNETTE FUNICELLO Her biopic joins Lois & Clark in Mission Impossible: scoring rating points against Fox

DALLAS COWBOYS Abandoned as America's team. Green Bay merchandise sales are gaining ground fast

NEW ORLEANS INSPECTORS Big question in the Big Easy: Any way to enforce the city's ban on renting to transients?

THE WORN COMMISSION REPORT

After every Inaugural, the secretary of the Smithsonian asks each First Lady to donate something--not necessarily a dress, though it almost always is--to the collection. And ever since Jackie Kennedy (who set the modern glam standard), it seems the Republicans have been cleaning out their closets quicker, perhaps to make room for all those new cloth coats.

LESS THAN 1 YEAR NANCY REAGAN

Inauguration: Jan. '81 Donated: Nov. '81

1 YEAR BARBARA BUSH

Inauguration: Jan. '89 Donated: Jan. '90

1 YEAR PAT NIXON

Inauguration: Jan. '69 Donated: Jan. '70

1 1/2 YEARS ROSALYNN CARTER

Inauguration: Jan. '77 Donated: July '78

ALMOST 2 YEARS JACKIE KENNEDY

Inauguration: Jan. '61 Donated: Nov. '62

MORE THAN 2 YEARS HILLARY CLINTON

Inauguration: Jan. '93 Donated: March '95

ALMOST 4 YEARS LADY BIRD JOHNSON

Inauguration: Jan. '65 Donated: Nov. '68

Source: Smithsonian

HEALTH REPORT

THE GOOD NEWS

--A toast to ALCOHOL--if consumed in moderation. An 11-year study found that middle-aged men who had two to six drinks a week were half as likely to die from heart disease as those who didn't touch the stuff. The drinking did not increase their cancer risk, either. Cheers.

--A cleaner slate for CORONARY-BYPASS PATIENTS. Often the grafted veins used for the surgery wind up just as clogged as the arteries that are bypassed. But research shows that taking drugs to lower cholesterol aggressively can greatly reduce the chances of the grafts' going bad.

--Kids, grit your teeth. Just one shot of the antibiotic Rocephin can be as effective in treating childhood EAR INFECTIONS as 10 days on oral antibiotics--today's standard treatment.

THE BAD NEWS

--Can the JUICE? Preschoolers who guzzle as little as 12 oz. of fruit juice a day tend to be fatter or shorter than their peers. Why? At the expense of more nutritious foods, kids fill up on liquid that's packed with sugars, albeit natural ones.

--Sniffle sufferers may have to forsake the popular antihistamine SELDANE--which doesn't make you sleepy. The fda may ban the drug because it can cause abnormal heart rhythms--even death--when taken with certain antibiotics and antifungals.

--Fat fad foiled. An oil prized by fitness buffs as a low-cholesterol energy booster may, in fact, raise cholesterol. A study suggests that the fat, MCT oil, can elevate BAD CHOLESTEROL (LDL) as much as the notorious cholesterol-raiser palm oil.

Sources--GOOD NEWS: Archives of Internal Medicine; New England Journal of Medicine; Pediatrics BAD NEWS: Pediatrics; Food and Drug Administration; American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

PEEPER CREEPERS

Cockroaches are used to inhabiting the dark underside of life, but scientists at the University of Tokyo are exploring ways that la cucaracha can become more socially redeeming. Using hardy American roaches, scientists remove their wings, insert electrodes in their antennae and affix a tiny backpack of electric circuits and batteries to their carapace. The electrodes prod them to turn left and right, go backward and forward. The plan is to equip them with minicameras or other sensory devices so that they can crawl into pipes to track vermin or, in a more heroic endeavor, be sent into earthquake rubble to locate survivors. Sewage inspection should suit them just fine: cockroaches are scavengers that eat their own. A spokesman for Combat Insect Control Systems, which makes household insecticides, says there is no shortage of roaches for such duties (more than 3,500 species exist), "but it will probably be hard to get the cameras back. Cockroaches don't like to be around people in commotion. And they generally die on their backs."

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

JACK LALANNE, 82; SAN LUIS OBISPO, CALIFORNIA; Fitness Pioneer

Long before there were aerobics classes and juice bars, there was Jack LaLanne. His California health spa (started in 1936) was the country's first, and on his TV program, which aired from 1952 until 1986, he was a buoyant evangelist for fitness. At 60 he swam, handcuffed, 1 1/2 miles from Alcatraz to San Francisco's shore, towing a rowboat filled with 1,000 lbs. of sand. He still maintains a rugged regimen; up at 5 every morning, he works out an hour with weights before swimming for another hour. "My conscience is terrific," he says. "If I missed a workout, it would just kill me." For those wavering about their New Year's resolutions to shape up, he advises, Set small goals and change your workout program every three or four weeks. "The only way you can hurt the body is through inactivity," he says. No chance of that happening to Jack.