Outdoors + Tech newsletter – March 9, 2020

Outdoors + Tech news articles, blog posts and research papers for March 9, 2020

 

bracelets


The pros and cons of tracking college athletes’ health

KUOW (Seattle), Joshua McNichols from

… Some college coaches and their staff of training specialists would like access to that rich source of data, University of Washington researcher Samantha Kolovson has found. She said data from wearables is much better than what coaches get by leaning against a locker and asking an athlete “How’d you sleep last night?”

Kolovson said those sorts of informal locker room conversations help coaches estimate a team’s overall health, which informs gut decisions they make to increase the team’s chance of winning. But with so many fitness trackers out there now, coaches see an opportunity to make more decisions based on data.

Student athletes are prone to present themselves to coaches and trainers in ways that aren’t entirely accurate, Kolovson said.

 

Polar Vantage V: Premium Multisport GPS Watch with Heart Rate Monitor

Wearable Technologies, Marius Janta from

… In our opinion the holy grail lies in the benefits that consumers have of their data. Surely this differs and there are detail lovers that want to dig into every detail but on average a user wants a simple way with interpreted data and recommendations that guide them in their daily activities and alert whether drastic or negative long-term changes occur. This is definitely the case with the manifold integrations of the Polar Vantage. For instance, three factors for individual strain: Cardio Load, Muscle Load and subjective Rate of perceived Exertion (RPE) are integrated and compared with average means regarding past DATA (up to 90 days) and categorized whether your trainings status is depleting, building up or overstrained. A nice to have feature would be a perspective if your training schedule fits your current status or whether coming training bouts are likely to lead to overtraining. But with the orthostatic test a well working alternative for current recovery status exists. With regards to the Running Index, the related estimated VO2max and predictions of 10k to marathon times, we´d rather carefully certify reliability and assume better predictions for the average polar user, simply because more data is available. GPS and Navigation worked smoothly and since this is frequently part of intense user discussions, we believe science grade accuracy is unnecessary in most of the situations.

 

Apple, Johnson & Johnson study to predict stroke risk with Apple Watch

CNBC, Todd Haselton from

  • Apple and Johnson & Johnson announced a new study called Heartline on Tuesday to research atrial fibrilation and early detection of stroke using the Apple Watch.
  • Apple and Stanford published the results of a different health study in November, and the finding are still up for debate among doctors.
  • The new Heartline study is open to people aged 65 and older and open enrollment begins today.
  •  

    software


    The Importance of Capturing Dynamic Motion for Medical Wearables

    CEVA, Charles Pao from

    … The biggest players in wearables production continue to work on advanced functionality for the medical market that will not only provide more data on fitness levels, but also determine susceptibility for disease and monitor critical health metrics. It isn’t just about collecting data on individual metrics, though. Wearables need to be able to link up with other devices so it can fuse all of their data, process it and draw conclusions about user health.

    A lot of these applications will be huge for disease detection, patient comfort and convenience – hopefully in the near future. With this type of tracking and analysis on a wearable device, it will cut down on invasive testing procedures and frequent visits to the doctor.

     

    Goodix License and Deploy CEVA Bluetooth Low Energy IP in SoCs Targeting Wearables, Mobile Devices, the Internet of Things

    CEVA, Press Release from

    Goodix GR551x series of highly-integrated Bluetooth low energy SoCs simplify product development for a wide range of low power, connected smart devices

     

    Strava Brings Back Chronological Ordering, Adds Athlete Favoriting

    Ray Maker, DC Rainmaker blog from

    As part of Strava’s apparent ‘Make Strava Great Again’ 2020 campaign, the company has rolled out yet another new feature to their 50 million athletes: The ability to put your feed back how it should be: Chronological order.

    You might remember back in 2017 Strava switched to a ‘Personalized’ setup, which basically meant they tried to figure out the most interesting activities, regardless of date, and surface those to the top of your feed. Essentially what Facebook and other social media platforms were doing. You might also remember people were pretty upset about it. And, mostly still are. Today though, that changes.

     

    hardware


    Building Hardware to Enable Continuous Data Protections

    DARPA from

    The safety and security of critical information – whether it is sensitive intellectual property (IP), financial information, personally identifiable information (PII), intelligence insight, or beyond – is of vital importance. Conventional data encryption methods or cryptographic solutions, such as Advanced Encryption Standards (AES), translate data into a secret “code” that can only be decoded by people with access to a decryption key. These methods protect data as it is transmitted across a network or at rest while in storage. Processing or computing on this data however requires that it is first decrypted, exposing it to numerous vulnerabilities and threats. Fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) offers a solution to this challenge. FHE enables computation on encrypted data, or ciphertext, rather than plaintext, or unencrypted data – essentially keeping data protected at all times. The benefits of FHE are significant, from enabling the use of untrusted networks to enhancing data privacy. Despite its potential, FHE requires enormous computation time to perform even simple operations, making it exceedingly impractical to implement with traditional processing hardware.

     

    Getting closer to no-battery devices

    Network World, Patrick Nelson from

    IoT sensors that don’t require power sources could be coming soon. Researchers from University of California, San Diego, claim they’ve figured out how to optimize lab-based modules to such an extent that a Wi-Fi radio, used in IoT for communications with a network, could soon be using 5,000-times less energy and yet still feature enough bandwidth to send video.

    The technique being exploited takes advantage of backscattering. That’s a way of parasitically using radio signals inherent in everyday environments. In this case, the chip piggybacks on existing Wi-Fi transmissions to send its data. This method of sending data is power-light, because the carrier needed for the radio transmission is already created—it doesn’t need new energy for the message to be sent.

    Interestingly, two principal scientists involved in this backscattering project, which was announced by UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering, have also been heavily involved in the development of “wake-up” radios.

     

    Printed CPU Allows for More Flexible Applications

    YouTube, IDTechEx from

    Founded in 1995, it is a professional supply platform for smart card chips and RFID products.
    SNS brings his longterm production experiences in contactless card and smart label into Printed Electronics,
    able to use Flexographic, Screen and Inkjet printing in Printed Electronics on various low-temperature
    substrates like Paper, PET etc. In house Pick and Place process for components with ACP brings
    Printed Electronic products into a higher level of product integrity. [video, 7:05]

     

    gear


    Snow Camping Pro Tips

    MSR, The Summit Register blog from

    It’s critical to know how to layer properly, use your snow safety gear and navigate terrain during winter backcountry trips. But just as important is knowing how to proficiently camp in the snow. After all, the more you have your snow-camping system figured out, the more enjoyable—and productive—your adventures will be. This quick list of pro tips will make camping during the harshest season of the year easier, so you can stay out longer.

     

    We’re in the Middle of a Sports-Bra Revolution

    Outside Online, Ariella Gintzler from

    Technological advances and a growing line of research have paved the way for a new class of support systems that are comfortable, look good, and fit a wide(r) variety of bodies.

     

    Refine the Search for Your Perfect Shoe

    PodiumRunner, Jonathan Beverly from

    … I can run comfortably and effectively in nearly any model, but some make the lights come on. They match the shape of my foot, holding it in complete comfort and security. I land softly and smoothly, just where I expect to land. My foot rolls as it wants to roll, with nothing impeding it or annoying it—yet it is also supported in just the right places with just the right level of cushion. When my weight rolls onto the ball the shoe surprises and delights me with the perfect blend of comfort and connected power and, before I know it, I’m launched forward, hardly noticing that I’ve touched the ground.

    Biomechanical researcher Benno Nigg says this moment of comfort with a shoe comes when it allows me to run in my preferred movement path. When it happens, he told me, “You are running in the Jonathan style”—and the shoe is allowing and supporting my personal style. Nigg also says that this “comfort filter” is the best way of choosing shoes, that the shoe that feels right is right, both for efficiency and injury-prevention.

     

    materials


    Electrolyte supplements don’t prevent illness in athletes

    Stanford University, Stanford Medicine, News Center from

    Researchers found that supplements did not appear to protect endurance athletes from illness caused by electrolyte imbalances. They also found that hot temperatures are a risk factor.

     

    stories


    An Introduction to Running Cadence

    Breaking Muscle, Carol Mack from

    … Cadence is the number of steps a person takes per minute. The reason we’ve started paying attention is that a few years ago, research showed it correlates with how much impact goes through the legs with each foot strike.

    Higher cadence means more steps per minute, which means less loading or impact on a run. Kind of cool, eh?

    Increasing your cadence can also help with over-striding. While opening up your stride is a great thing for sprinting, it’s not efficient for distance running. This is why Usain Bolt doesn’t run marathons. Most people who over-stride land with their knee locked, slamming their heel into the ground at the point of impact.

     

    Guest Editorial: Understanding Pronation

    Lower Extremity Review Magazine, Mark Mendeszoon from

    As a podiatrist, athlete, coach, and independent running shoe proprietor, I have always had an interest in biomechanics and the impact on lower extremity overuse injuries and conditions. Perhaps the most well-known biomechanical term, pronation, is also the most misunderstood. In his recent article, Benno Nigg et al. (see Foot Pronation, pg 33-38)1 confirm that pronation is an integral part of the gait cycle and has a direct impact on lower extremity injuries. After a thorough review of previous studies, Nigg confirmed that pronation is appreciated by the profession but still a theory and not an absolute science. While that may be true academically for clinicians, the importance of recognizing biomechanics is imperative in treating patients. It can also play a role in building one’s practice.

     

    Here are the training secrets of the world’s top ultramarathon runners

    Wired UK, Matt Burgess from

    … “Every single world record I have set hasn’t been a perfect race,” says US runner Camille Herron, who holds records over 80km (50 miles), 160km (100 miles), 12 hours and 24 hours. In the last of these, set at the end of 2019, she ran 270.116km at a pace of 5:20 per km. In preparation for these long distance races, athletes often don’t practice running anywhere near the time or for the distance that they will need to do on the race day.

    But elite runners training for ultramarathons do run a lot. Ahead of Herron’s 24-hour world record, she ran around 1,000 miles in two months of training. To build up for the race she spent 15 weeks preparing – the first month of this was spent regaining fitness after a period of rest. Herron says the longest runs she will do as part of her training reach around 32-35km, as she doesn’t get much benefit from running longer. Overall, she runs around 160km to 190km per week.

    Herron puts her success down to repeated speed workouts, which are scattered between runs that help build up overall mileage.

     

    biking


    The Hard Part: Learning to Love Climbing Trails in the Forest

    Singletracks, Brian Gerow from

    Our modern trail toys are surprisingly nice to climb on, though not everyone shares a love for the ascent. For folks who have no interest in learning to enjoy the ups of mountain biking, there are shuttles, chairlifts, and e-bikes to get you to the top. However, if you revel in earning your turns, or you want to learn to revel in it, there are a handful of different ways to think about climbing that you may find useful.

     

    Shimano’s smart tech gives Volt’s Infinity e-bike the edge

    TechRadar, Rob Clymo from

    Volt’s website gives you an indication of what to expect from its cool-looking new Infinity two-wheeler. “We don’t make e-bikes that look too electric” it says, as you pick over the fascinating history of this innovative British brand. It also gives you a great idea of what to expect from this latest addition to the growing range of Volt e-bikes.

     

    A New Michigan Gravel Bike Race That Will Challenge Your Limits!

    The Sun Times News (Chelsea, MI) from

    THE WATERMOO is an 88-mile gravel road race on mostly gravel, some tarmac, and a road that is no longer a road with a river crossing in the farmlands of southeastern Michigan. To complete THE WATERMOO requires participants to work hard and patiently like the water oxen that once roamed the land many years ago. THE WATERMOO will be an honest challenge for most, and something riders will be proud of completing.

     

    data


    A new model of vision

    MIT News from

    … “What we were trying to do in this work is to explain how perception can be so much richer than just attaching semantic labels on parts of an image, and to explore the question of how do we see all of the physical world,” says Josh Tenenbaum, a professor of computational cognitive science and a member of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines (CBMM).

    The new model posits that when the brain receives visual input, it quickly performs a series of computations that reverse the steps that a computer graphics program would use to generate a 2D representation of a face or other object. This type of model, known as efficient inverse graphics (EIG), also correlates well with electrical recordings from face-selective regions in the brains of nonhuman primates, suggesting that the primate visual system may be organized in much the same way as the computer model, the researchers say.

     

    Cumulative Metrics of Tendon Load and Damage Vary Discordantly with Running Speed

    Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise journal from

    Purpose
    Cumulative load has become a popular metric in running biomechanics research to account for potential spatiotemporal changes associated with different locomotion strategies. This study investigated how incorporating mechanical fatigue principles into Achilles tendon cumulative load measurements affected their relationship with running speed.
    Methods
    Achilles tendon forces and strains were estimated from a dynamometry/ultrasound session followed by a motion capture session, where participants ran at three speeds. Three cumulative measures of increasing complexity were calculated using Achilles tendon force/strain: (1) cumulative load, defined as the product of the stance phase time integral of Achilles tendon force/strain and the stride count for 1-km of running; (2) cumulative damage, which accounted for the non-linear relationship between load magnitude and fatigue life by exponentially weighting the time integral of Achilles tendon force/strain prior to multiplication with stride count; and (3) the probability of fatigue failure, which expanded upon the cumulative damage measure of Achilles tendon strain by fitting a probabilistic Weibull model to existing fatigue life data to account for the inherent variability that exists in the fatigue life of biological samples.
    Results
    Cumulative load measures significantly decreased with running speed, while the cumulative damage and probabilistic measures either increased or did not change significantly with running speed.
    Conclusions
    The choice of cumulative metric has an important influence on the interpretation of overuse injury risk with changes in running speed. While cumulative load metrics certainly provide meaningful information about the load experienced over a given distance, they do not account for the tissue damage incurred by such load. Cumulative load metrics should therefore be interpreted with caution when making inferences to overuse injury risk.

     

    Ahead of the curve in the evolution of human feet

    Nature, News and Views, Glen A. Lichtwark & Luke A. Kelly from

    The longitudinal arch has long been considered a crucial structure that provides stiffness to the human foot. Now the transverse arch is stepping into the spotlight, with a proposed central role in the evolution of human foot stiffness.

     

    public lands


    Spending time in nature reduces stress, research finds

    Cornell University, Cornell Chronicle from

    New research from an interdisciplinary Cornell team has found that as little as 10 minutes in a natural setting can help college students feel happier and lessen the effects of both physical and mental stress.

    The research, published Jan. 14 in Frontiers in Psychology, is part of a larger examination of “nature therapy” and aims to provide an easily-achievable dosage that physicians can prescribe as a preventive measure against high levels of stress, anxiety, depression and other mental health issues college students face.

    “It doesn’t take much time for the positive benefits to kick in — we’re talking 10 minutes outside in a space with nature,” said lead author Gen Meredith.

     

    Why federally protected lands are so crucial

    TreeHugger, Melissa Breyer from

    … “There’s a quiet, almost covert, effort to dismantle the public lands management infrastructure,” Jim Lyons, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management at the Interior Department in the Obama administration, told Yale. “It’s very effective. I call it evil genius.”

    And really, is it any surprise? The acting director of the Bureau of Land Management is William Perry Pendley, who has long been a champion against federal control of public lands. Meanwhile, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt – whose agency is responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land and natural resources – has a curious CV for the position. His last job was as an industry lobbyist with a law firm that represents clients like Rosemont Copper Mine, Halliburton Energy Services, and the Independent Petroleum Association of America – none of which would seem to be all that interested in preserving wilderness.

     

    Federally protected lands reduce habitat loss and protect endangered species, study finds

    Tufts University, Tufts Now from

    Using more than 30 years of earth satellite images, scientists at Tufts University and the non-profit conservation organization Defenders of Wildlife have discovered that habitat loss for imperiled species in the U.S. over this period was more than twice as great on non-protected private lands than on federally protected lands. As wildlife face a host of survival threats ranging from habitat destruction to global climate change, the study, published today in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, provides evidence that federal land protection and listing under the U.S. Endangered Species Act are effective tools for stemming losses in species habitat.

     

    energy


    Amy Prieto is building safer, more powerful batteries

    Chemical & Engineering News, Jyllian Kemsley from

    In terms of developing novel lithium-ion battery materials and manufacturing processes, that meant understanding trade-offs: for a conventional 2-D battery to store a lot of energy, its electrodes need to be thick, but for it to charge quickly, they need to be thin. Prieto’s 3-D batteries are based on a foam substrate that undergoes two electroplating steps and a coating process to add the anode, a solid-state polymer electrolyte, and a cathode. Because the electroplating coats the foam’s pores and outer surface, the material has greater surface area compared with a conventional battery. That means it simultaneously has greater energy storage capacity and can charge and discharge faster.

    Prieto became an entrepreneur through “good fortune,” she says. Colorado State had a program to promote clean energy development by pairing researchers with mentors who had commercialization and entrepreneurial experience. Her 3-D battery research had reached a stage where it would be harder to quickly progress in a university setting, so she founded Prieto Battery in 2009 with funding from an angel investor to purchase better equipment, work on prototypes, and build a pilot manufacturing line.

     

    Scientists turn stinky durian waste into energy storage

    TreeHugger, Melissa Breyer from

    … “Durian waste, as a zero-cost substance that the community wants to get rid of urgently due to its repulsive, nauseous smell, is a sustainable source that can transform the waste into a product to substantially reduce the cost of energy storage through our chemical-free, green synthesis protocol,” says Associate Professor Vincent Gomes.

    Looking for new ways to develop energy storage devices with high energy density to meet the challenges of global warming and rapidly depleting fossil fuel, the team took on durian and jackfruit to try and create electrochemical super-capacitors.

     

    Leave a Comment

    Your email address will not be published.