August 15, 2007, 8:18 PM CT

Study asks how safe is high school football?

Football, one of the most popular sports in the United States, is also the leading cause of sports-related injuries. During the 2005-06 season, high school football players sustained more than half a million injuries nationally. A study conducted by scientists in the Center for Injury Research and Policy (CIRP) at Columbus Childrens Hospital, is the first to compare injuries among high school and collegiate football players using a nationally representative sample.

As per the study, reported in the recent issue of The American Journal of Sports Medicine, four out of every 1,000 high school football exposures resulted in an injury, while eight out of every 1,000 collegiate football exposures resulted in an injury. Eventhough National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) football players were twice as likely to sustain an injury as high school football players, high school football players sustained a greater proportion of season-ending injuries, fractures and concussions in comparison to collegiate football players.

While football does have a high rate of injuries, injuries dont have to be just part of the game, said Christy Collins, MA, research associate in CIRP at Childrens Hospital and co-author of the study. There are ways to reduce the number and severity of football injuries through targeted interventions. Because we observed high levels of ankle and knee injuries, we recommend increased conditioning of ankles and knees and rule changes aimed at protecting these vulnerable body sites. As most of the injuries to these regions were due to ligament sprains, targeted stretching exercises may also be beneficial......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

August 7, 2007, 10:47 PM CT

Wealth gap is increasing

The rich really are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, a new University of Michigan study shows.

The study---the most recent available analysis of long-term wealth trends among U.S. households---is based on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, conducted by the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR) since 1968.

Over the last 20 years, the net worth of the top two percentile of American families nearly doubled, from $1,071,000 in 1984 to $2,100,500 in 2005. But the poorest quarter of American families lost ground over the same period, with their 2005 net worth below their 1984 net worth, measured in constant 2005 dollars.

The poorest ten percent of families actually had a negative net worth---more liabilities than assets. The poorest 5 percent of American households had a negative net worth of a little more than $1,000 in 1984, in comparison to nearly $9,000 in 2005.

"These findings show that the wealth gap is increasing steadily," said Stafford, a senior research scientist at ISR and director of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which is funded primarily by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Aging.

The analysis of a nationally representative sample of approximately 8,000 families was conducted by Stafford and ISR economist Elena Gouskova......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

August 6, 2007, 5:51 PM CT

MRI provides insight for safe return-to-play decisions

Concussions are common in young athletes but the underlying changes in brain function that occur have been poorly understood. Now, a University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine study is the first to link changes in brain function directly to the recovery of the athlete. Results of the five-year study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, are reported in the recent issue of the scientific peer-evaluated journal, Neurosurgery, the official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons.

We observed that abnormal brain activity in children and adolescents on functional MRI (fMRI) was clearly correlation to their performance on neuropsychological tests of attention and memory and to their report of symptoms such as headaches, said principal investigator Mark Lovell, Ph.D., asssociate professor in the departments of orthopaedic surgery and neurological surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

These results confirm crucial objective information that is usually obtained by neuropsychological testing to help team doctors and athletic trainers make critical decisions about concussion management and safe return to play, added Dr. Lovell, who is founding director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Sports Medicine Concussion Program, a clinical service and research program focused on the management of sports-related concussions......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

August 6, 2007, 5:50 PM CT

Old McDonald's has a hold on kids' taste buds

Say what you will, Shakespeare, but a McNugget by any other name is just not as tasty. At least, not to the 3- to 5-year-old set.

Asked to sample two identical foods from the fast-food giant McDonald's, children preferred the taste of the version branded with the restaurant's familiar "Golden Arches" to one extracted from unmarked paper packaging, say scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.

The study shows that even young children are swayed by brand preferences. The results are likely to fuel more debate over a growing movement to restrict marketing to kids under 8 years old.

"Kids don't just ask for food from McDonald's," said Thomas Robinson, MD, director of the Center for Healthy Weight at Packard Children's and associate professor of pediatrics and of medicine at the School of Medicine. "They actually think that the chicken nugget they think is from McDonald's tastes better than an identical, unbranded nugget".

The degree of preference expressed by the children correlated with the number of television sets they had in their homes and the frequency with which they ate at McDonald's.

Numerous studies have shown that young children are unable to understand that advertising, product placement and co-branding with popular toys are meant to get them to choose one product over another. For them, "truth in advertising" has a very literal meaning......... Posted by: Sean      Read more         Source

August 6, 2007, 5:22 PM CT

US retirement wealth up sharply by 2040

The average value of Americans 401(k) plans will be substantially higher in real terms by the year 2040 even if stock market returns fall short of their historical values, as per new research by a team of economists from MIT, Harvard and Dartmouth.

As per a research findings published this week in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, James Poterba of MIT, Steven Venti of Dartmouth College and David Wise of Harvard University looked at how changes in types of pension plans and in demographic structure will affect the wealth of future retirees.

They observed that if the average return on stocks for the next thirty-five years is three percentage points below its historical value, then the average value of 401(k) plan balances would increase from $29,700 in 2000 to $269,000 by 2040. If equity returns continue at their historical level, the average plan balance in 2040 would be even greater: $452,000 by 2040. All dollar values are measured in constant 2000 prices.

The findings challenge some bearish projections that retirement assets will drop in value in coming decades as baby-boomers cash out their holdings. The team accounted for the discrepancy by noting that their research takes into effect the continuation of pension plan shifts away from traditional defined benefit plans toward 401(k) plans a trend that has been under way for some 30 years......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

August 6, 2007, 5:17 PM CT

Test To Detect Gene Doping In Athletes

Gene doping has the potential to spawn athletes capable of out-running, out-jumping and out-cycling the strongest of champions. But research under way at the University of Florida could help level the playing field by detecting the first cases of gene doping in professional athletes before the practice enters the mainstream.

In the wake of recent Tour de France drug violations and with the 2008 Olympics looming the need to stay ahead of the game has never been more evident. Thats why the Montreal-based World Anti-Doping Agency, or WADA, charged with monitoring the conduct of athletes, is working with scientists around the globe to develop a test that would bust competitors for injecting themselves with genetic material capable of enhancing muscle mass or heightening endurance.

If an athlete injects himself in the muscle with DNA, would we be able to detect that" asked one of Frances leading gene therapy researchers, Philippe Moullier, M.D., Ph.D., an adjunct professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at UF and director of the Gene Therapy Laboratory at the Universite de Nantes in France.

Right now the answer is no, he said. But the UF scientists are among several groups collaborating with national and global anti-doping organizations to develop a test that could detect evidence of doped DNA......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

August 3, 2007, 9:52 PM CT

Explorers' Limited Ability To Navigate

When explorers like Magellan and Columbus sailed from Europe to the New World 500 years ago, they amazingly managed to navigate the open sea without terrestrial landmarks, natural boundaries or the navigational technology we have today.

Historical reports show that some explorers and other seafaring people did so by imagining an island just over the horizon; if they kept track of where the "virtual island" was, they knew which direction to go in the open water.

But new research from the University of Iowa suggests that people's ability to imagine virtual islands -- without any perceptual cues to help -- is quite limited. Consistent with this, studies of how seafaring people navigate on the open seas suggest they actually rely on two key perceptual cues: perception of their own motion and the boat's motion. Thus, the ability to navigate in open water stems from how the body senses motion, not on a mental ability to imagine a point.

In a paper published this month in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, doctoral candidate Vanessa Simmering and associate professor John Spencer, both of the Department of Psychology in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, provide evidence that adults cannot arbitrarily carve the world into spatial regions. Instead, they write, people must rely on perceptual cues for help. The paper is titled "Carving Up Space at Imaginary Joints: Can People Mentally Impose Arbitrary Spatial Category Boundaries?"......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

August 3, 2007, 5:07 AM CT

Heat-related deaths in middle, high school football players

Every year, Fred Mueller compiles a sports list, but unlike popular pre-season picks or a glamorous hot-recruit sheet, nobody envies him this task. Some years the list is longer than others, but, Mueller said, theres no reason any kid should be on it.

Its a list of boys who died playing or practicing football, kids whose body temperatures rose so high and so fast under the summer sun that their brains couldnt keep up, couldnt regulate their cores, and the boys died.

When something is preventable., Mueller said, shaking his head. Those kids could be alive today.

Five young athletes, from 11 to 17 years old, died of heat stroke in 2006. The trend was declining. The last time there were more than five was 1972, when there were seven. In five of the past 16 years there were none. But, Mueller said, there have been 31 since 1995, and all of them could have been avoided.

Seven other players died last year of heart-related deaths that might or night not have been related to heat or exertion. And we dont know the number of kids who had heat exhaustion, Mueller said.

With summer practice about to swing into high gear, Mueller said its time to remember these kids, and to keep in mind how heat-related deaths can be prevented.

• Require each athlete to have a physical and know if an athlete has a history of heat-related illness; these kids are more susceptible to heat stroke. Overweight players are also at higher risk.

........ Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 06:21:56 GMT

SMART To Introduce Electric ForTwo

[Image Source: AutoExpress]

SMART will bring to market an electric vehicle - "EV" - in the not so distant future. According to AutoExpress, the latest of three is set to eclipse the Prius as greenest halo car.

"Packing a 41bhp electric motor, acceleration is quite strong, but motorways are a struggle with a 69mph top speed, and the range of 70 miles means it is really only suitable around town. Still, a full charge takes eight hours and costs only £1.35 [($2.75)]."

The SMART ForTwo will also feature an economical 799cc turbodiesel that will also emit less carbon emissions than the Prius.

[Source: AutoExpress] Posted by: Gunnar Heinrich      Read more     Source

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 06:16:31 GMT

French are the fattest cats

French executives are the fattest cats in Europe.

A poll in Fortune found that French executives took 10 of the 20 top spots, including first and second place.

Top of the heap was Carlos Ghosn, CEO of French automaker Renault, who pulls in $45.5 million (not including the millions he gets for also running Japan's Nissan whose principal owner is Renault). That's seven times more than what he was getting in 2005 and the increase was the result of all those options in his package.

Number two on the list was Jean-Paul Agon of L'Oreal, on $19.3 million.

The other French bosses on the list were the men behind AXA, Total, Societe General, Vinci, Air Liquide, Bouygues, Danone and Alstom. Apart from the French, there were three Italians, two Swiss and two British execs.

Belinda Hudson of Mercer's executive-compensation practice told Fortune that transparency remains an issue in France. France remains stuck on stock options for tax and other reasons, and companies don't face the same institutional investor pressure that businesses in Britain, the US, Australia, and other countries face.

The issue is whether any of that will change with an increasingly global economy. Posted by: leon      Read more     Source