… So why did Asher-Smith choose to juggle studying history with making sprinting history?
“I think uni makes you a more balanced person all round because sometimes it’s not healthy for your entire life to be sport. Like in my case, having smashed up my foot and knowing I had the world champs in less than six months, you could slip into being really negative.
“But having something else to focus on or that commands your attention, you can’t actually afford to be wallowing in your own despair. I literally had five days when I was like ‘oh no I broke my foot’ but then I knew my first dissertation draft was due in three days!
“I think that kind of balance is really beneficial. Yes, it’s stressful at times – but also it gives you a wider view of the world too. Especially as a history student, you get a much broader appreciation for people’s individual struggles to get where we are today.
… Wright-Phillips, 32, says he is grateful just to have a coach who has clear expectations for him after he spent years adrift in England’s lower divisions, playing for coaches too distracted by promotion or relegation struggles to worry about developing their players.
During that period, Wright-Phillips saw his once-promising career — he played in Manchester City’s academy and broke in to the first team under Manager Kevin Keegan (“He was the first person who made me believe I was special as a finisher,” Wright-Phillips said) — derailed amid a series of false starts at progressively smaller English clubs: Southampton, Plymouth Argyle, Charlton Athletic and Brentford.
… If you’ve followed Sydney for the last two years, you know she’s good at creating moments—history-making moments. In 2016, at the age of 16, she became the youngest track and field athlete to make the U.S. Olympic team since 1980 (she turned 17 during the Rio Games). She lit up social media when she ran a national high school record 49.85-second 400-meter relay split in June. And while many teen track and field runners on the rise with credentials less impressive than Sydney’s have gone pro in recent years, the New Jersey native decided to pass up what could have been seven figures annually as a pro.
That’s why she’s here, in Lexington, with her UK team—Snapchatting and dancing on a sunny Saturday morning in September, one week before track practice begins. While UK’s men’s basketball team has brought in recruits-turned-NBA-All-Stars like John Wall and Karl-Anthony Towns under the tutelage of coach John Calipari, the highest-profile recruit to land on campus this year isn’t hooping. She’s running.
Our latest Freakonomics Radio episode is called “How to Launch a Behavior-Change Revolution.” … Academic studies are nice, and so are Nobel Prizes. But to truly prove the value of a new idea, you have to unleash it to the masses. That’s what a dream team of social scientists is doing — and we sat in as they drew up their game plan. [audio, 44:40]
… Permissionless innovation may seem like common sense, but it isn’t. For decades, the Bell telephone network refused to connect any phones except those it licensed. The claim was that the phones might not be safe; the effect was to arrest progress at the stage of rotary phones attached by wires to walls. The problem went far beyond phone sets, though: economist Tom Hazlett’s recent piece in Reason describes how requiring permission set back communications in the United States for decades.
There are two kinds of obstacles to permissionless innovation: requiring permission from regulators and requiring permission from competitors.
Jonathan Rothberg, a entrepreneur who prides himself on drastically disrupting the biomedical industry every so often, has typically big claims for his new product. The Butterfly iQ, a cheap handheld ultrasound tool with AI smarts tucked inside, will 1) revolutionize medical imaging in hospitals and clinics, 2) change the game in global health, and 3) eventually become a consumer product that will be as ubiquitous as the household thermometer, he says.
Today, Rothberg’s startup Butterfly Network unveiled the tool and announced its FDA clearance for 13 clinical applications, including cardiac scans, fetal and obstetric exams, and musculoskeletal checks. Rather than using a dedicated piece of hardware for the controls and image display, the iQ works with the user’s iPhone. The company says it will start shipping units in 2018 at an initial price of about $2,000.
Physical therapists have a new tool to help them treat patients at various stages of rehabilitation. FDA cleared the Med4 Elite, an orthopedic rehabilitation device, from Game Ready, which is part of Concord, CA-based CoolSystems Inc.
The new technology comes with four options in one device: iceless cold therapy, heat therapy, rapid contrast therapy (which alternates heat and cold), and intermittent pneumatic compression therapy. The flexibility of the different treatment options will allow physicians and physical therapists to treat a wide range of injuries in various stages of rehabilitation to help patients recover more quickly and comfortably, the company said.
“The future of orthopedic recovery has arrived,” said Craig Grabell, the company’s president and CEO. “With the launch of the Med4 Elite, we are changing the postoperative and post-injury landscape. This is a landmark moment for Game Ready and our customers.”
“ISOTechne redefines how organizations approach sports training,” says Jeff Alger, the Founder, President & CEO of Seattle Sport Sciences. He was taking time to talk to the Leaders Performance Institute about the development of the organization’s ISOTechne platform, which allows soccer teams to measure how well a player can execute their passing, receiving, finishing, clearing, crossing and a wealth of skill-related questions.
Silicon Valley-based VitalConnect, a producer of wireless wearable monitoring devices, announced the closure of a $38 million Series C funding round. The funding round was led by MVM and Baxter Ventures, with participation from Mercy.
VitalConnect is best known for its FDA-cleared, disposable peel-and-stick health sensor, the VitalPatch. Combined with a software platform, the wearable continuously measures eight different vitals (ECG, heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, skin temperature, posture, severity, and steps) in real-time. The company’s original sensor, the HealthPatch MD, which was larger and non-disposable.
The physical demands of professional tennis combined with high training/match loads can contribute to musculoskeletal injury. The objectives of this study were to (1) describe the type, location and severity of injuries sustained during a 12-month tennis season in a cohort of professional female tennis players on the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tour and (2) prospectively investigate associations between training/match loads and injury. METHODS:
52 WTA players competing at the Australian Open (2015) consented to participate. Injuries reported to WTA medical staff were classified using tennis-specific guidelines. Individual match exposure data were collected for all matches played at international level in 2015 and expressed per 1000 hours of WTA competition matchplay (MP) and 1000 match exposures (MEs). Variables associated with the number of injuries in the season and loss of time from competition were identified with regression analysis. RESULTS:
The injury incidence rate (IR) was 56.6 (95% CI: 49.5 to 64.6) per 1000 hours of MP or 62.7 (95% CI: 54.8 to 71.6) per 1000 MEs, although the IR of injuries resulting in loss of time from competition was lower (12.8 per 1000 hours of MP, 92 injuries/100 players). Lower limb (51%) and muscle/tendon (50%) injuries were the most common site and type of injury. Common specific injury site subcategories were the thigh, shoulder/clavicle, ankle and knee in order of frequency. Various measures of match load were significantly associated with injury. CONCLUSION:
This study prospectively analysed injury profiles, including severity across an entire season of professional tennis, and investigated the relationship between training/match loads and injury. These data may help medical professionals develop injury risk identification and prevention programmes.
Running a fever can make you feel pretty crummy, but elevating your body temperature is actually the immune system’s way of fighting an infection. It’s important to rest during this process, and data from our Nokia Thermo users reveals that this is exactly what people attempt to do—with mixed results.
… In the interest of advancing care and combating the growing prevalence of injuries to young athletes, The Micheli Center for Sports Injury Prevention (TMC) has developed the Sports Injury Prevention Prescription — known as SIPRx. Created by Felix Wang, TMC’s lead software developer, SIPRx combines historical data and client information with measurements taken in-person at The Micheli Center. The program processes over 300 measurements in order to put together a specific and comprehensive sports injury prescription for the individual athlete. Included in this prescription are injuries that the athlete is at risk for, as well as exercises that can help reduce risk.
Currently, TMC has assessed over 5,000 athletes, using various programs such as injury prevention evaluations, 3D throwing and golf analysis, gait (running) analysis, and ACL injury measurements for return to play evaluation. Much of the information gained from these assessments has been included in the more than 100 journal articles published involving The Micheli Center, as data gathering and clinical practice become even more intertwined.
Athletes are more prone than most to upper respiratory tract infections (URTI) at this time of year and symptoms of a sore throat, headache, fatigue, runny nose and watery eyes account for 40-60% of problems that sideline them from training.
Your diet is your best defence against seasonal infection, so prepare for battle by adding the following to your shopping list:
A recent study co-funded by ESPN and the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that 52 percent of retired football players had used prescription pain drugs (opioids) during their professional careers. Of those, 63 percent admitted they received the painkillers from coaches, trainers, fellow teammates and other sources.
Ironically, the NFL has a policy on substance abuse, which prohibits the illegal use of drugs. So on one hand the NFL is telling players they can’t use illegal drugs, but with their other hand the league turns a blind eye to its coaches, team physicians and trainers handing out prescription painkillers like candy. Obviously, there is something terribly wrong with this picture.
And while states across our nation are recognizing and legalizing the use of medical cannabis programs to ease people’s pain and suffering, the NFL lists cannabis as an illegal drug in its Policy and Program on Substances of Abuse. Players are subject to suspensions with a second positive test.
Many retired professional football players, who are suffering excruciating pain, are touting the benefits of cannabis in easing their pain.
The Conversation, Kate Ratliff and Colin Smith from
When most people think of bias, they imagine an intentional thought or action – for example, a conscious belief that women are worse than men at math or a deliberate decision to pull someone over because of his or her race. Gender and race biases in the United States have historically been overt, intentional and highly visible. But, changes to the legal system and norms guiding acceptable behavior in the U.S. have led to clear reductions in such explicit bias.
Unfortunately, we still see disparities in health, law enforcement, education and career outcomes depending on group membership. And many large-scale disparities we see in society also show up in small-scale studies of behavior. So, how are these inequalities sustained in a country that prides itself on egalitarianism?
Of course, overt sexists and racists still exist and explicit biases are important. However, this isn’t how many social and organizational scientists like us currently understand prejudice – negative attitudes toward members of a social group – and stereotyping – beliefs about the characteristics of a social group. Our field is working to understand and measure implicit bias, which stems from attitudes or stereotypes that occur largely outside of conscious awareness and control.