… Garmin added a ton of fitness improvements to this watch, including optional all-day pulse ox measurements, hydration tracking, new breathing exercises (that don’t suck), new custom workouts, on-screen animations, and more. Unsurprisingly, all those improvements add up to the Vivoactive 4’s $349 starting price, which is at least $100 more than what the Vivoactive 3 Music goes for nowadays.
Those features add a lot of value and push the Vivoactive 4 ahead of even the Apple Watch in terms of fitness, but I still have a soft spot for the Vivoactive 3 series—and plenty of happy users may skip this upgrade.
Fitbit (NYSE: FIT) was once the top wearables maker in the world, but it was eventually surpassed by Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Xiaomi, and Huawei. Fitbit tried to keep up with new devices, but its growth continued to decelerate, its gross margin crumbled, and its stock plunged nearly 80% over the past three years.
However, a recent survey from The Manifest found that more people are familiar with Fitbit’s wearables than Apple’s. The Manifest claims two factors kept Fitbit relevant: its first-mover advantage and its affordable devices.
… In comparison to a hospital-grade ECG, the Apple Watch version is significantly less precise, so it can’t serve as a replacement just yet.
It uses one lead (with two electrodes) as opposed to a standard twelve lead (with 10 electrodes) ECG, which involves placing electrodes over the patient’s torso and limbs to take readings in twelve directions. The twelve lead ECG can inform the doctor reading the electrocardiogram exactly where any irregularities are stemming from.
Apple Watch’s ECG capabilities have been cleared – but not approved – by the FDA. In order to be fully approved, the technology must be subjected to significantly more rigorous testing and data analysis.
Part of the difficulty in training the public in how to respond to medical emergencies is that many don’t understand the human anatomy below the skin. Moreover, knowing what different conditions actually look like on the body is another problem. Knowing where arteries run and where muscles connect to bone, as well as how bruises, infections, and orthopedic injuries appear, can be helpful in recognizing and addressing common maladies.
Elizabeth Weissbrod, while working at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine at the Uniformed Services University, had an idea to create tattoos that display the underlying muscles, bones, vessels, and the like, that can be stuck to the skin to help better learn how our bodies are strung together.
This work reports the process of sensor development, optimization, and characterization before the transition to on-body measurements can be made. Sensors using lactate oxidase as a sensing mechanism and tetrathiafulvalene as a mediator were optimized for sporting applications. Optimized sensors show linear range up to 24 mM lactate and sensitivity of 4.8 μA/mM which normalizes to 68 μA*cm−2/mM when accounting for surface area of the sensor. The optimized sensors were characterized 3 different ways: using commercially available reference and counter electrodes, using printed reference and counter electrodes, and using a printed reference electrode with no counter electrode. Sensors intended for measuring sweat must be selective in the presence of sweat constituents. Thus, in addition to traditional characterization in pH 7.0 buffer, we characterized sensor performance in solutions intended to approximate sweat. Sensor performance in pH 7.0 buffer solution was not reflective of sensor performance in artificial sweat, indicating that further characterization is necessary between sensor measurement in pH 7.0 buffer and on-body measurements. Furthermore, we performed enzyme activity measurements and sensor measurements concurrently in five different salts individually, finding that while NH4Cl and MgCl2 do not affect enzyme activity or sensor performance in physiologically relevant ranges of salt concentration, NaCl concentration or KCl concentration decreases enzyme activity and sensor current. On the other hand, CaCl2 induced a nonlinear change in sensor performance and enzyme activity with increasing salt concentration. [full text]
A smart shirt, developed by Canadian startup Hexoskin, can accurately measure lung function when compared to traditional testing equipment, according to a research presented at the European Respiratory Society International Congress. The smart shirt measures lung function by sensing movements in the chest and abdomen. The researchers at the Radboud University Medical Centre in Netherlands used this shirt together with a mobile app, to reliably measure breathing in healthy people while carrying out a range of everyday activities.
In agreeing to sanction the first esports championship, UCI — the world’s governing body for cycling — acknowledged it needs to ‘remain relevant to all audiences.’
Calling it, “a major milestone in the history of cycling,” virtual cycling platform Zwift and the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) this week announced the world’s first professional esports championship. The UCI Cycling Esports World Championships will take place sometime in 2020.
“Our developer community actively use the TomTom Maps API, yet they can be a bit overwhelmed by the number of possibilities to modify map features,” TomTom Managing Director, Anders Truelsen, commented in a press release. “We introduced TomTom Map Styler to further improve the experience of customizing our maps, helping developers to keep visual consistency for their website or mobile app.”
I heard a great podcast discussion with Andreessen Horowitz’s Vijay Pande a few weeks ago on why this time is different for wearables and it’s worth diving into this topic a bit further. The discussion centered around what’s different about wearables now vs. when wearables first launched. Vijay’s primary point was that data science, particularly machine learning, is now being applied to biometric sensor data at scale and in context.
Biologging is a scientific endeavor that studies the environment and animals within it by outfitting the latter with sensors of their dynamics as they roam freely in their natural habitats. As wearable technologies advance for the monitoring of human health, it may be instructive to reflect on the successes and failures of biologging in field biology over the past few decades. Several lessons may be of value. Physiological sensors can “encode” for a wider number of states than the one explicitly targeted, although the limits of this are debatable. The combination of orthogonal sensors turns out to be critical to delivering a high value data set. Sensor fusion and engineering for longevity are also important for success. This Perspective highlights successful strategies for biologging that hold promise for human health monitoring. [full text]
… In recent years, a newer, sturdier family of lab-grown compound semiconductor materials has emerged: group III-nitrides. Gallium nitride (GaN) and aluminum nitride (AlN) and their alloys have a wider bandgap, allowing them to withstand greater voltages and higher frequencies for faster, more efficient energy transmission.
“Silicon is very good at switching off and on and controlling electrical energy flow, but when you take it to high voltages it doesn’t operate very well because silicon has a weak electric strength, whereas GaN can sustain much higher electric fields,” said co-senior author Debdeep Jena, the David E. Burr Professorin Electrical and Computer Engineering and in Materials Science and Engineering. “If you’re doing very large amounts of energy conversion, then wide-bandgap semiconductors such as GaN and silicon carbide are the solutions.”
Marathon runners and race walkers at the world athletics championships in Doha have been offered pill thermometers to monitor their reaction to the severe heat, IAAF president Sebastian Coe said on Thursday.
The road races will take place at midnight to alleviate the effects of the brutal conditions although the IAAF has predicted that the air temperature will still be around 30 degrees Celsius. Track and field events will take place at the Khalifa stadium which is air-conditioned and will not be affected.
Google’s Project Jacquard is back with a high-end rucksack called YSL Cit-e Backpack. Developed in collaboration with Saint Laurent, it can control music, take pictures and more.
… The outdoor gear market is currently awash (ha!) in ways to improve the best rain jackets, from stretching panels of Gore-Tex into ultra-thin layers to directly meshing sustainable, perfluorocarbon-free waterproofing into a fabric’s fibers. Futurelight is the North Face’s entry. Its engineers use teensie, tiny nozzles to spin spiderweight webs of lightweight, breathable waterproofing material that keep rain and wind out while releasing heat and vapor.
Futurelight technology was originally developed from nanospinning techniques used in water filtration systems and smartphone electronics casings. The North Face hasn’t released its proprietary formula, but we know its waterproofing material is not made from harmful perfluorocarbons that have been linked to birth defects, cancers, and other health issues.
EurekAlert! Science News, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology from
A collaboration mainly led by scientists from Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT) in Japan has developed a new method of molecular design to control both temperature reversibility and stiffness of nanofibers that are gel-forming peptides. The peptide nanofiber hydrogel can be used as biomedical materials. This method will allow the peptide nanofibers more biomedical applicable.
REI Co-op has shared plans to adopt a new method to test for flame resistance in its tents, which will allow the brand to transition away from flame-retardant finishes beginning in fall 2020. The co-op will also begin exploring new lightweight, durable materials that were previously unavailable due to incompatibility with flame-retardant chemical coatings.
This announcement is a major milestone in a long journey. “Finding a solution took extensive collaboration across a wide range of industry partners and passionate co-op employees,” says Scott F. Smith, manager of test engineering for REI Co-op.
… When moisture-wicking apparel first appeared in the late 1980s, “it was very expensive, and people didn’t really see the value in it,” says Matt Powell, senior sports industry advisor at The NPD Group. By the early aughts, every major athletic apparel brand had their own variation on this theme: Nike had Dri-Fit, Adidas had ClimaLite and Reebok had PlayDry. But it was Under Armour, Powell says, with its singular focus and branding, that was able to turn moisture-wicking sports apparel into “a massive business.”
The brand launched in 1996, trademarking the slogan “cotton is the enemy” all while selling its skin-tight apparel to professional athletes. In time, the concept trickled down to casual athletes in a big way. By the late 1990s, brands targeted at women, such as Athleta and Lululemon, entered the market — both were founded in 1998 — and helped make synthetic, moisture-wicking materials standard in athleticwear.
Frontiers in Sports and Active Living journal from
During the 2019 IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Doha and the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, minimum daily temperatures are expected to be in excess of 30°C. Due to the metabolic demands of the sporting events and the high environmental temperatures, the risk of exertional heat stroke (EHS) is high. Careful planning by event organizers are needed to ensure that athletes are protected from irreversible long-term health damage, or even death during sporting competitions in the heat. Efforts typically have included standard medical plans, equipment, protocols, and expert medical teams. In addition, the importance of responding quickly to a hyperthermic athlete cannot be understated, as minimizing treatment time will greatly improve the chances of full recovery. Treatment time can be minimized by notifying medical personnel about the health status of the athlete and the extent of any pre-competition heat acclimatization. Technology that allows the live transmission of physiological, biomechanical, and performance data to alert medical personnel of potential indicators of EHS should be considered. Real time monitoring ecosystems need to be developed that integrate information from numerous sensors such as core temperature-monitoring “pills” to relay information on how an athlete is coping with competing in intense heat. Medical/support staff would be alerted if an athlete’s responses were indicating signs of heat stress or EHS signs and the athlete could be withdrawn under exceptional circumstances. This technology can also help provide more rapid, accurate and dignified temperature assessment at the road/track side in medical emergencies.
How we prepare food matters to us, surprisingly deeply, it turns out.
Scientists have recently discovered that different diets — say, high-fat versus low-fat, or plant-based versus animal-based — can rapidly and reproducibly alter the composition and activity of the gut microbiome, where differences in the composition and activity can affect everything from metabolism to immunity to behavior.
“What we didn’t know was whether the form of the food also mattered,” said Rachel Carmody, assistant professor in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology. And the answer is apparently yes.
… There are different ways to treat SAD, one of which involves making the effort to get outside and connect with nature, even when you don’t feel like it, because being outside and in the fresh air can have really positive impacts on your overall mood.
“Many of us have heard that nature is good for us, but what many people don’t know is there is an increase in research that tells us it actually changes things like our biochemistry and our brain chemistry in a positive way,” [Joti] Samra says. “Our blood pressure is reduced, our heart rate slows down, and we are more present, which all offers positive impacts on our life.”
Research from the company Bioracer Motion in collaboration with Ghent University investigated the subjectivity of different bike fitting services and the subsequent impact on advised position. Results showed that bike fitting is quite severely suffering from expert subjectivity.
… So while it’s exceedingly hard to wind up with a bad bike, it’s also exceedingly hard to wind up with a great one if you’re too wrapped up in counting pennies and grams and millimeters and degrees. If you already know for certain that you want to buy a specific “genre” (road race, gravel, XC mountain, what have you) but you can’t decide between Brand X, Y, or Z because they’re all so similar, zoom out and remember it’s as much about how you feel about who’s selling you the bike. Does one come from a local bike shop with whom you can (or want to) build a relationship? Or are you the self-sufficient and/or antisocial type who doesn’t mind foregoing all that and saving a few bucks in the short term by shopping online? There’s certainly nothing wrong with the latter, but if you’re just starting out on your cycling journey the long-term value of the former could be incalculable.
… [Nedra] Deadwyler inaugurated Civil Bikes with a group ride on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2014. Now she and her team run public and private biking and walking tours that visit Atlanta’s first park for African Americans, opened at a time when the city’s main green space, Piedmont Park, was segregated; the Auburn Avenue corridor, home to Atlanta’s historically Black business district and the birthplace of King; and more.
A Georgia native, Deadwyler discovered her love of bicycling while living in New York City and earning a master’s degree in social work from New York University.
Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy from
Background
Effective injury prevention measures for running-related injuries (RRIs) have not yet been identified. More insight into the opinions of runners about injury prevention might help to develop effective injury prevention programs that are supported by the target population. Objectives
To describe the opinions of recreational runners on different components of injury prevention, and to identify the barriers to and facilitators of injury prevention in adult recreational runners. Methods
In this comparative cross-sectional study, a single questionnaire was sent to 2378 recreational runners. The questionnaire contained questions about their interests, actions undertaken, and perceived barriers to and facilitators of injury prevention. Descriptive analyses were used to examine differences with regard to sex, age, and previous RRIs. Results
One thousand thirty-four adult recreational runners (43.5%) responded to the questionnaire. Runners with previous RRIs were more likely to rate injury prevention as very useful than runners who had never sustained an RRI (76.8% versus 63.6%, P<.001). In total, 81.8% of the participants indicated that they already performed preventive measures, including changes to training schedules (65.4%) and warming up and cooling down (57.8%). Most frequently reported barriers to injury prevention were “not knowing what to do” (45.2%) and “no history of RRI” (34.6%). The most important facilitator was an injury (60.1%). Women more often preferred information via a trainer or running store than did men, while men more frequently preferred websites or e-mail.
Conclusion
The majority of runners rated injury prevention as important. To increase effectiveness, future prevention programs
Two MIT professors have found a strong relationship between students’ grades and how much sleep they’re getting. What time students go to bed and the consistency of their sleep habits also make a big difference. And no, getting a good night’s sleep just before a big test is not good enough — it takes several nights in a row of good sleep to make a difference.
Those are among the conclusions from an experiment in which 100 students in an MIT engineering class were given Fitbits, the popular wrist-worn devices that track a person’s activity 24/7, in exchange for the researchers’ access to a semester’s worth of their activity data. The findings — some unsurprising, but some quite unexpected — are reported today in the journal Science of Learning in a paper by MIT postdoc Kana Okano, professors Jeffrey Grossman and John Gabrieli, and two others.
University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame Magazine, Nicole White from
… “This study asserts that without social-network information, we only have an incomplete view of an individual’s wellness state,” Chawla says, “and to be fully predictive or to be able to derive interventions, it is critical to be aware of the social-network structural features as well.”
The findings further indicated the likelihood that people will share similar fitness habits with their close family and friends. Chawla told the online magazine Inverse about reaching the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, an achievement he attributes more to the encouragement and support of his climbing group than to his intense physical training.
“Imagine the context of having a gym buddy or group,” he said. “There is that support, that understanding, that motivation, and that perception of self and others that helps us develop that social-network support.”