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A GREAT GRAY LADY with a storied past slipped into Pittsburgh Wednesday morning, and now curious and devoted visitors are coming to pay her homage. LST 325 -- Landing Ship, Tank -- has seen rougher duty, including Sicily in 1943 and the Normandy coast on D-Day 1944. These days she serves as a floating museum in Evansville, Ind., but as the last functioning ship of her type she also makes trips twice a year, and this time Pittsburgh was one of the lucky ports. While LST 325 was built in Philadelphia, she is a reminder of Pittsburgh history, too, as several hundred ships of her type were built by Dravo Corp. on Neville Island and by American Bridge Corp. in Ambridge. The historic ship, docked at the North Shore, will be open for public tours through Tuesday.

IF STEELERS All-Pro safety Troy Polamalu were in the Navy, he would be told to get a haircut, but in the National Football League this gridiron warrior's abundant hair is his crowning glory -- and crowns don't come cheap. As a living advertisement for Head & Shoulders shampoo, Troy Polamalu's mane has been insured against on-field accidents by Lloyd's of London for $1 million, according to an announcement last week by the shampoo's parent company, Procter & Gamble. Lloyd's is famous for insuring all sorts of things, but hair insurance is a head turner -- which, of course, was the idea, being a way to kick off a new ad campaign for Head & Shoulders. The insurance company's money appears safe. No. 43 would have to lose 60 percent of his hair in some football mishap to be compensated. Hair loss from natural causes does not qualify, so men who fear male pattern baldness should not line up to insure themselves. If they feel they are missing the boat, they can always join the Navy.

TO SLEEP, perchance to dream -- ay, there's the rub. Unfortunately, for older people the rub in William Shakespeare's observation is often about insomnia. They would like to dream of heroic voyages and sporting glory, perchance, but, as the PG's Sally Kalson reported Thursday, about 25 percent of people over 60 have trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep. If severe enough, insomnia can harm the way people function and increase the risk of other medical problems, sometimes leading sufferers to overmedicate with prescription or over-the-counter drugs. The good news is that the University of Pittsburgh is set to look for answers to the problem with a $9.8 million grant from the National Institute on Aging. In a five-year study, which will be called AgeWise, some 400 seniors will be recruited (this is the one occasion when it may be acceptable to sleep on the job). Timothy H. Monk, director of the Human Chronobiology Research Program at the Western Psychiatric Institute & Clinic and the study's lead investigator, said the goal of the study is to understand better the biological causes of insomnia and then find the most effective non-pharmaceutical solutions for each cause. Now that's a dream worth pursuing.

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