… The record Vinatieri will set is a testament to his remarkable career. It also could go down as an unbreakable benchmark. Here are three reasons I believe Vinatieri will stay the NFL’s field goal king for quite some time.
… “Last year a lot of things were out of my control,” he said.
“This year I am just looking for a chance. It’s like I just want a chance to play again. I know I can. People, when they don’t see you for a while they think you have forgotten everything you have ever done. I have been in the league nine years. I have been productive. It’s just about having an opportunity to play consistently and show that I still belong in this league.”
Where he fits in with this team remains to be seen.
… Veterans including current players Carli Lloyd and Megan Rapinoe have taught the new generation how things can go wrong.
“They share those experiences to help the younger ones [know] that these tournaments are very important,” Ertz said. “This is the first goal to the ultimate goal.”
The qualifying tournament might see the return of the steely midfield partnership of Ertz and Sam Mewis. They’ve played well together since the Olympics, but Mewis has missed some games this year due to injuries. Now they’re both healthy and in form.
“Sam is a phenomenal player,” Ertz said. “She can really control the tempo of a game, which is huge. … And then obviously, her threat finishing outside the box.”
… Howe believes his team’s fitness levels are playing a part in that respect after seeing them move to seventh in the table with their fourth win of the campaign.
Howe told Monday Night Football: “It was a difficult second half for us. I thought Crystal Palace played well and we took a bit of a while in that half to get in our stride.
… As the number of cyber attacks has increased, we’ve heard concerns about the potential for cyber criminals to attack patient medical devices. Cybersecurity researchers, often referred to as “white hat hackers” have identified device vulnerabilities in non-clinical, research-based settings. They’ve shown how bad actors could gain the capability to exploit these same weaknesses, thereby acquiring access and control of medical devices. The FDA isn’t aware of any reports of an unauthorized user exploiting a cybersecurity vulnerability in a medical device that is in use by a patient. But the risk of such an attack persists. And we understand that the threat of such an attack can cause alarm to patients who may have devices that are connected to a network. We want to assure patients and providers that the FDA is working hard to be prepared and responsive when medical device cyber vulnerabilities are identified.
At the FDA, we‘ll continue to put protecting patients at the forefront of what we do. Today, we are building on a foundation of shared responsibility with our stakeholders. In coordination with the MITRE Corporation, we’re announcing the launch of a cybersecurity “playbook” for health care delivery organizations that’s focused on promoting cybersecurity readiness. We’re also announcing the signing of two significant memoranda of understanding. These agreements bring together multiple stakeholders to allow for increased information sharing and transparency around cybersecurity risks.
… “When is it the athletes doing the bulk of the work, and when is it the best choice of technology?” [Steve] Haake asks. “It’s this uneasiness where you’re not sure when someone’s winning. You really want to feel that someone is winning because they are the best athlete.”
So perhaps the best technology in sport is where it’s present, but unseen: silently pulling strings, but not in a way where it’s obvious something dramatic has changed. World records should stand for years, but if Manchester United lose to Liverpool in November, fans can at least take comfort in the fact that they’ll get another crack in March.
We’ll never know whether Roger Bannister could have given Mo Farah a run for his money with the same technological boosts. But in team sports it’s a different story, and technology is an asset that can be embraced by all, so any advantages given are fleeting by nature. If they work: others will follow, and balance will inevitably be restored to the sport.
“That’s what you get in all sports, no matter how old or new they are, they all reach some kind of homeostasis where people are happy with the tech and rules and how it’s working,” Haake explains. “And it’ll stay like that until something new comes along.”
Pressures in the intracranial, intraocular and intravascular spaces are clinically useful for the diagnosis and management of traumatic brain injury, glaucoma and hypertension, respectively. Conventional devices for measuring these pressures require surgical extraction after a relevant operational time frame. Bioresorbable sensors, by contrast, eliminate this requirement, thereby minimizing the risk of infection, decreasing the costs of care and reducing distress and pain for the patient. However, the operational lifetimes of bioresorbable pressure sensors available at present fall short of many clinical needs. Here, we present materials, device structures and fabrication procedures for bioresorbable pressure sensors with lifetimes exceeding those of previous reports by at least tenfold. We demonstrate measurement accuracies that compare favourably to those of the most sophisticated clinical standards for non-resorbable devices by monitoring intracranial pressures in rats for 25 days. Assessments of the biodistribution of the constituent materials, complete blood counts, blood chemistry and magnetic resonance imaging compatibility confirm the biodegradability and clinical utility of the device. Our findings establish routes for the design and fabrication of bioresorbable pressure monitors that meet requirements for clinical use.
Researchers at Washington State University have developed an implantable, biofuel-powered sensor that runs on sugar and can monitor a body’s biological signals to detect, prevent and diagnose diseases.
A cross-disciplinary research team led by Subhanshu Gupta, assistant professor in WSU’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, developed the unique sensor, which, enabled by the biofuel cell, harvests glucose from body fluids to run.
The research team has demonstrated a unique integration of the biofuel cell with electronics to process physiological and biochemical signals with high sensitivity.
Scientists at the Riken, a major Japanese research institute, and University of Tokyo have developed a remarkable ambient light-powered cardiac monitor that looks like a transparent bandage. The underlying technology makes possible other flexible body-worn sensors that don’t need to have an external electric source powering them, including temperature and sweat sensors. Because power is supplied directly from a built-in photovoltaic cell, the noise in the electronics is kept to a minimum, allowing for high-precision measurements.
Junk-food lovers who try to cut back on fries or chocolate may experience symptoms similar to drug withdrawal, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that people attempting to cut down on eating highly processed foods experience some of the same physical and psychological symptoms — such as mood swings, cravings, anxiety, headaches and poor sleep — as those quitting smoking cigarettes or using marijuana, according to the study, which was published online Sept. 15 in the journal Appetite.
The new study offers the first evidence that these withdrawal-like symptoms can occur when people cut down on highly processed foods, said lead study author Erica Schulte, a doctoral candidate in psychology at the University of Michigan.
… I believe that switching from my current way of eating to LCHF would carry an unacceptably high risk of causing problems. For me, a better question than the one Dave asked is, why would I experiment with LCHF? My current diet does not limit my athletics in any way that I can identify. When I train harder I get fitter and when I rest I recover. I feel good physically pretty much all day every day. At age 47 I am as lean as I was when I was 27. If it ain’t broke, as they say. . .
Meanwhile, on the other side of the equation are a host of negatives outcomes, some guaranteed, others likely, that are associated with jumping onto the LCHF bandwagon. Nearly all athletes who do so feel like crap initially and experience a significant decline in training capacity and performance. Some come out the other side eventually, others don’t. The diet is extremely restrictive and monotonous and socially isolating. (“Hey, Brad! Do you want to come out to dinner with us? We’re going to that Italian place.” “Uh, well, you see. . .”) And the physiology is inescapable: Eating LCHF will make your muscles better at burning fat and much worse at burning carbohydrate, hence more dependent on fat, which requires greater amounts of oxygen to metabolize, thereby increasing the energy cost of moving at any given speed.
Those are the guaranteed outcomes. The potential outcomes that seem to affect some but not all LCHF eaters include unfavorable changes in blood lipids, mood disturbances, vertigo, skin problems, caffeine intolerance, and panic attacks. The long-term health effects of eating in this extremely unbalanced way are largely unknown, but a recent, large epidemiological study found that, on average, men and women who get less than 40 percent of their daily calories from carbs die four years younger than do those who get between 40 and 70 percent of their calories from carbs.
International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism from
There is a long history of fraud in every sphere of human activity, and science is no exception. Various checks are in place to try to limit the success of those who would deceive others, but the system is far from perfect. Those who have time on their hands to follow the flaws and fabrications in published papers that are subsequently retracted (https://retractionwatch.com/) will be familiar with the darker side of scientific publishing. Papers are retracted because of clear errors ranging from carelessness in data analysis to deliberate fabrication of results. Some involve high-profile names, and no field of science is immune. The errors that are detected are probably only the tip of the iceberg, and the peer-review process is failing badly in these cases.
Many years ago, I was asked to review a paper for a journal: the paper relied on correction of the measured circulating concentration of several substrates and metabolites for the relatively large changes in plasma volume that inevitably occur in high-intensity exercise. The change in plasma volume was calculated from the well-established Dill and Costill formula that uses changes in hemoglobin concentration and hematocrit for the calculation of plasma volume change. However, the authors of the paper under review had used an automated cell counter to measure hematocrit: this method is flawed when used in samples collected before and after hard exercise because of the changes in plasma osmolality that occur (see Watson & Maughan, 2014 for an explanation of this, though that paper had not been published at that time). I rejected the paper for that reason (among others), and the editor in turn duly informed the authors. A few weeks later, I was somewhat surprised to receive the same manuscript from a different journal for review. The only difference was that hematocrit was now measured by spun hematocrit, an acceptable method but one that could not have been applied to stored samples. I informed the editor of the dishonesty on the part of the authors, and the paper was again rejected. No doubt it was subsequently published elsewhere. [full text]
… The Midwest is marked by underperforming metropolitan areas. Detroit lacks a professional club in the top two divisions. There has been talk of an expansion team led by Quicken Loans founder and Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert. In the meantime, lack of investment has shown itself to be a problem for the region. It has produced four fewer prospects than expected.
Chicago’s Cook County has underperformed despite being home to the U.S. Soccer Federation and the MLS’s Chicago Fire. Even though it provided nine players in our observation period, that was still 2.53 fewer than expected. While the low performance of Cook County could read as another indictment of U.S. Soccer Federation it also means that they have a local laboratory to experiment and rectify the situation.
For as long as the NHL’s been around, debates about which players are better than others have almost always centered around goals and assists, accolades like Stanley Cup rings and Hart Trophies, intangibles like toughness and leadership, and more recently, gateway advanced statistics like Corsi and expected goals.
But what if you could take a deep dive into whether Connor McDavid is really better than Sidney Crosby using previously unknown comparison points like passes to the slot, offense off the cycle, and respect rating? And, what if these new player measurements not only helped decide arguments at the bar, but also dramatically altered how NHL franchises value players, and how those players evaluate themselves?
Well, these data points – and many others – may be available to hockey fans on a large scale as early as next year. NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirmed to theScore that a full rollout of player and puck tracking is penciled in to debut during the 2019-20 season.
The migration of Latin American talent to Major League Baseball—particularly players from Cuba—has long been an unseemly business, shrouded in don’t-ask-don’t-tell secrecy. These exodus stories often come suffused with tales of bribes, kickbacks, side deals with smugglers, dubious immigration documents and middlemen skilled at working around immigration laws.
This baseball underbelly might soon be exposed. Sports Illustrated has learned that the U.S. Department of Justice has begun a sweeping probe into possible corruption tied to the recruitment of international players, centered on potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. What’s more, SI has learned that multiple alleged victims of smuggling and human trafficking operations have already given evidence to law enforcement agents or testified before a federal grand jury.