GOOD

Texas Is Getting Serious About Concussions

The state is launching the nation’s largest study into brain injuries in youth sports

 Tosten Burks
12.13.16

Image via Flickr user Stuart Seeger

Everything is bigger in Texas, including efforts to study brain injuries in young athletes. The state, in partnership with University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, announced the launch of a study yesterday that will track every brain injury suffered by Texas’ more than 800,000 public high school athletes in over 20 sports. It will be the largest statewide study of its kind.

The project comes as pressure increases to confront youth football’s underestimated role in long-term brain damage, partially sparked by a recent wrongful death lawsuit filed against Pop Warner. It also comes as a growing body of research shows that brain damage is not restricted to football.

“Until we understand what the frequency of concussions is across the state, or a region of the state, we can’t determine when rule changes, equipment changes or things like recovery programs are really being effective,” Dr. Munro Cullum, a professor of psychiatry, neurology and neurotherapeutics who will lead the study, told the Associated Press.

Scientists have taken few steps to develop treatments for these types of brain injuries, partly because they still don’t understand the scale. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is seeking federal funding for a national database tracking concussions, but meanwhile, the Texas study is a major step toward diagnosing the problem. The University Interscholastic League, the state’s governing body for public high school sports, hopes to use the data to evaluate how rule or equipment changes can improve player safety.

“Right now (concussion data is) a sample that is just a snapshot,” UIL deputy director Jamey Harrison said. “We need to move beyond that.”

News of this study also comes the same week that the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a concussion-related class action settlement between the NFL and more than 20,000 retired players. The settlement will cover medical benefits for players who suffered concussions and related injuries, costing the NFL up to $1 billion. However, some ex-players argued the decision was insufficient because it did not cover the degenerative brain disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and for excluding current retirees who don’t yet have neurological problems.

“We look forward to working … to implement the settlement and provide the important benefits that our retired players and their families have been waiting to receive,” the NFL said in a statement.

Sports

Youth activists gather to fight climate change at UN Summit: 'We need to transform anger into action'

Julian Meehan

Young leaders from around the world are gathering at the United Nations Headquarters in New York Saturday to address arguably the most urgent issue of our time. The Youth Climate Summit comes on the heels of an international strike spearheaded by Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old climate activist from Sweden, who arrived in New York via emissions-free sailboat earlier this month.

Translated from Swedish, "berg" means "mountain," so it may feel fated that a young woman with Viking blood in her veins and summit in her name would be at the helm. But let's go out on a limb and presume Thunberg, in keeping with most activists, would chafe at the notion of pre-ordained "destiny," and rightly so. Destiny is passive — it happens to you. It's also egomaniacal. Change, on the other hand, is active; you have to fight. And it is humble. "We need to get angry and understand what is at stake," Thunberg declared. "And then we need to transform that anger into action."

This new generation of activists' most pernicious enemy is denial. The people in charge — complacent politicians and corporation heads who grossly benefit from maintaining the status quo — are buffered from real-life consequences of climate change. But millions of people don't share that privilege. For them, climate change isn't an abstract concept, but a daily state of emergency, whether it comes in the form of "prolonged drought in sub-Saharan Africa…devastating tropical storms sweeping across Southeast Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific…[or] heatwaves and wildfires," as Amnesty International reportsare all too real problems people are facing on a regular basis.

RELATED: Greta Thunberg urges people to turn to nature to combat climate change

Keep Reading Show less
climate crisis un summit activists activism
The Planet

18 of the best signs from New York's Climate Strike march

Millions of people in over 150 countries across the globe marched for lawmakers and corporations to take action to help stop climate change on Friday, September 20.

The Climate Strikes were organized by children around the world as an extension of the of the "Fridays for Future" campaign. Students have been walking out of classrooms on Fridays to speak out about political inaction surrounding the climate crisis.

"We need to act right now to stop burning fossil fuels and ensure a rapid energy revolution with equity, reparations and climate justice at its heart," organizers say.

There's no doubt the visual images from the marches send a powerful message to those on the ground but especially those watching from around the world. GOOD's own Gabriel Reilich was on the scene for the largest of the Climate Strikes. Here are 18 of the best signs from the Climate Strike march in New York City.

Keep Reading Show less
climate strike climate change new york city climate strike signs

How you can get involved in the Global Climate Strike

September 20th marks the beginning of a pivotal push for the future of our planet. The Global Climate Strike will set the stage for the United Nations Climate Action Summit, where more than 60 nations are expected to build upon their commitment to 2015's Paris Agreement for combating climate change.

Millions of people are expected to take part in an estimated 4,000 events across 130 countries.

Keep Reading Show less
global climate strike greta thunberg united nations climate change
The Planet

Why the iPhone 11 is making people with trypophobia experience panic and revulsion

Do you have it?

via Apple

When the iPhone 11 debuted on September 10, it was met with less enthusiasm than the usual iPhone release. A lot of techies are holding off purchasing the latest gadget until Apple releases a phone with 5G technology.

Major US phone carriers have yet to build out the infrastructure necessary to provide a consistent 5G experience, so Apple didn't feel it necessary to integrate the technology into its latest iPhone.

A dramatic new feature on the iPhone 11 Pro is its three camera lenses. The three lenses give users the the original wide, plus ultrawide and telephoto options.

Keep Reading Show less
tryptophobia iPhone Apple iphone 11 tryptophobia
Health

Woman dreams she swallowed her engagement ring and wakes up with it missing

Dreams can have a powerful effect on us.

via I love butter / Flickr

We often dismiss our dreams as nonsensical dispatches from the mind while we're deep asleep. But recent research proves that our dreams can definitely affect our waking lives.

People often dream about their significant others and studies show it actually affects how we behave towads them the next day.

"A lot of people don't pay attention to their dreams and are unaware of the impact they have on their state of mind," said Dylan Selterman, psychology lecturer at the University of Maryland, says according to The Huffington Post. "Now we have evidence that there is this association."

Keep Reading Show less
enagement rings san diego california dreams woman swallows wedding ring CNN MSNBC Fox News woman swallows engagement ring
Health