Heading footballs may not be safe for children because their bodies cannot yet cope with the repetitive strain, one of Britain’s leading neuroscientists has said.
It comes as the family of a former England footballer was set to meet with representatives from the FA to discuss what is being done to research and raise awareness of the issue in the game.
Jeff Astle played more than 350 games up front for West Bromwich Albion in the 1960s and ‘70s, and earlier this year a pathologist found that he died in 2002 from an “industrial disease” – brain damage clearly linked to heading a heavy ball throughout his career.
Astle’s family are now calling for a parliamentary inquiry, and US studies have suggested that heading a football 1,000 times can lead to “untreatable problems”.
Dr Michael Grey, reader in Motor Neuroscience at the University of Birmingham's School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences, told Sky News that he and “many of [his] colleagues” believed it was not safe for children to head the ball.
“The reason for that is two-fold. First, the neck muscles aren't yet developed for the size of the children's head at that age.
“The other reason is that their brains are still developing so they're still in a very vulnerable period for taking a blow to thehead, and I should say these concussive events, we don't yet know if repetitive injury such as this is safe for professionals either.”
This week the FA released a set of new guidelines and rules covering concussion and head injuries in football, and produced an educational film starring current and former England players including Steven Gerrard.
The issue made headlines last season when the Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper Hugo Lloris was allowed to play on despite losing consciousness after being kneed in the head.
But the FA said it had no new information on the link between heading and brain damage because a the young players involved in a 10-year study, commissioned after Astle’s death, didn’t make it to a professional standard and stopped playing.
Speaking ahead of their meeting today with the FA chairman Greg Dyke and the neurosurgeon Dr Willie Stewart, Jeff’s daughter Dawn Astle told Sky: “We know what killed dad, the coroner's court said it was industrial disease: heading footballs killed dad and the Football Association just don't acknowledge it.
“We have real worries, not just for current footballers, and of course not just professionals - we're talking about amateurs as well - but about football's future, about the children in the game.
“They need to know the risks, then they can make informed choices.”
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Even Babies Have Wearable Tech Now
Everyone wants to be high-tech these days, but the creators of Sproutling believe your baby could be the most high-tech family member of all.
They've created a wearable baby monitor, which looks like a more cushiony, adjustable FitBit. The team behind Sproutling comes from Apple and Google, so they know a thing or two about easy-to-use tech products. In the simplest terms, Sproutling is a monitor of a baby's activity, instead of a traditional video or audio watchdog.
It lets you know what your baby is up to, but the notifications are unique. Instead of simply hearing the little nugget make a noise, Sproutling alerts you to his or her various activities through their application. The app will keep track of whether they are awake or asleep, and specify how long they have been sleeping and what kind of mood your baby is in. So, if your baby wakes up at 3:00 a.m., the app notification would read "Awake and fussy."
It will also warn you if outside noise might wake your baby up. And if anything unusual happens, like a strange roll over, a spike in temperature, or change in heart rate, you will get a bright red notification immediately.
Right now, the Sproutling app is available for iOS only, but is coming to Android soon. It comes with three pieces: a band for the sensor; the sensor which measures heart rate, temperature, position, movement, and if the band has been removed; and a wireless charger. A two-hour charge offers three days of usage.
Sproutling will retail for $299, though the presale price is $249. It's pricey, but for new parents who are hoping to eek out an extra hour or two of sleep, it seems worth the cost.
They've created a wearable baby monitor, which looks like a more cushiony, adjustable FitBit. The team behind Sproutling comes from Apple and Google, so they know a thing or two about easy-to-use tech products. In the simplest terms, Sproutling is a monitor of a baby's activity, instead of a traditional video or audio watchdog.
It lets you know what your baby is up to, but the notifications are unique. Instead of simply hearing the little nugget make a noise, Sproutling alerts you to his or her various activities through their application. The app will keep track of whether they are awake or asleep, and specify how long they have been sleeping and what kind of mood your baby is in. So, if your baby wakes up at 3:00 a.m., the app notification would read "Awake and fussy."
It will also warn you if outside noise might wake your baby up. And if anything unusual happens, like a strange roll over, a spike in temperature, or change in heart rate, you will get a bright red notification immediately.
Right now, the Sproutling app is available for iOS only, but is coming to Android soon. It comes with three pieces: a band for the sensor; the sensor which measures heart rate, temperature, position, movement, and if the band has been removed; and a wireless charger. A two-hour charge offers three days of usage.
Sproutling will retail for $299, though the presale price is $249. It's pricey, but for new parents who are hoping to eek out an extra hour or two of sleep, it seems worth the cost.
Friday, August 1, 2014
Broken robots 'learn to keep going'
Engineers have taken a step towards having machines that can operate when damaged by developing a robot that can teach itself to walk, even with a broken leg.
Using "intelligent trial and error", their six-legged robot learned how to walk again in less than 2 minutes.
"This new technique will enable more robust, effective, autonomous robots," the engineers behind the robot said.
They said the aim was to mimic the behaviour of injured animals.
The trial-and-error methodology could have ramifications for robots used in the workplace and for military purposes. A robot that can keep attacking - no matter how damaged - brings to mind the relentless android from the Terminator films. The Terminator - though fictional - could figure out how to keep going when injured
According to one expert, adaptive robotics is the cutting edge of the field. Most robots currently sit in factories and perform very specific functions. Scientists want to get robots to understand new and changing situations.
"The real challenge we are pursuing in robotics is robots that can adapt to uncertain and unstructured environments," Dr Fumiya Iida, of the Machine Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, told the BBC.
The scientists - Antoine Cully and and Jean-Baptiste Mouret of the Sorbonne in Paris and Jeff Clune of the University of Wyoming - published a research paper on their robot on Arxiv, a platform to release early versions of academic research that is overseen by Cornell University's library.
"When animals lose a limb, they learn to hobble remarkably quickly," Arxiv said in a blog post on the research. "And yet when robots damage a leg, they become completely incapacitated."
The scientists' robot has solved this by trying to mimic animals - by discovering which leg is broken and then then using trial and error to figure out the best way to continue walking.
"Locomotion is a major challenge," Dr Iida said. "It's an issue of energy efficiency. Robots are unusually very inefficient compared to animals."
Other companies are also trying to mimic animals, such as Boston Dynamics, which is now owned by Google. It makes a variety of robots, including the internet sensation Big Dog, which can attain locomotion on a variety of different and difficult terrains.
Big Dog was funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and Boston Dynamics contracts for the US military - which is an area where the trial-and-error algorithms could be applied, especially to machines injured in warfare.
But Dr Iida said that military use was only one aspect of better adaptive robots.
"There are lots of applications beyond the military," he said. "You can think of robots in extreme environments, so not only in warfare, but in space such as robots on the Moon and Mars, and in nuclear power plants. Think of Fukushima, for example, where humans can't go."
While these engineers are focused on self-learning robots, others are developing robots and materials that can "heal themselves" when they are damaged.
BAE Systems said recently that in the future, it could build drones that contained a lightweight fluid that would allow jets to heal themselves from damage sustained in flight, as well as on-board 3D printers that can make new parts, while a new plastic that can fix itself has been developed by engineers at the University of Illinois.
Using "intelligent trial and error", their six-legged robot learned how to walk again in less than 2 minutes.
"This new technique will enable more robust, effective, autonomous robots," the engineers behind the robot said.
They said the aim was to mimic the behaviour of injured animals.
The trial-and-error methodology could have ramifications for robots used in the workplace and for military purposes. A robot that can keep attacking - no matter how damaged - brings to mind the relentless android from the Terminator films. The Terminator - though fictional - could figure out how to keep going when injured
According to one expert, adaptive robotics is the cutting edge of the field. Most robots currently sit in factories and perform very specific functions. Scientists want to get robots to understand new and changing situations.
"The real challenge we are pursuing in robotics is robots that can adapt to uncertain and unstructured environments," Dr Fumiya Iida, of the Machine Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, told the BBC.
The scientists - Antoine Cully and and Jean-Baptiste Mouret of the Sorbonne in Paris and Jeff Clune of the University of Wyoming - published a research paper on their robot on Arxiv, a platform to release early versions of academic research that is overseen by Cornell University's library.
"When animals lose a limb, they learn to hobble remarkably quickly," Arxiv said in a blog post on the research. "And yet when robots damage a leg, they become completely incapacitated."
The scientists' robot has solved this by trying to mimic animals - by discovering which leg is broken and then then using trial and error to figure out the best way to continue walking.
"Locomotion is a major challenge," Dr Iida said. "It's an issue of energy efficiency. Robots are unusually very inefficient compared to animals."
Other companies are also trying to mimic animals, such as Boston Dynamics, which is now owned by Google. It makes a variety of robots, including the internet sensation Big Dog, which can attain locomotion on a variety of different and difficult terrains.
Big Dog was funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and Boston Dynamics contracts for the US military - which is an area where the trial-and-error algorithms could be applied, especially to machines injured in warfare.
But Dr Iida said that military use was only one aspect of better adaptive robots.
"There are lots of applications beyond the military," he said. "You can think of robots in extreme environments, so not only in warfare, but in space such as robots on the Moon and Mars, and in nuclear power plants. Think of Fukushima, for example, where humans can't go."
While these engineers are focused on self-learning robots, others are developing robots and materials that can "heal themselves" when they are damaged.
BAE Systems said recently that in the future, it could build drones that contained a lightweight fluid that would allow jets to heal themselves from damage sustained in flight, as well as on-board 3D printers that can make new parts, while a new plastic that can fix itself has been developed by engineers at the University of Illinois.
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