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SPONSORED BY  | | | | August 1, 2024: AI is transforming athletic performance, early testing for Alzheimer's disease comes with real tradeoffs, and new treatments for brain-eating amoebas. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | Credit: Bart Vandever and Eli Woodhall. Getty, Barny Garood, Glenn Mills | | | AI Boosts Athletic Prowess | Scientific American traveled to the main athletic training center for Olympic athletes in Colorado Springs, Colo., where sports scientists are using AI and giant data sets to optimize athletes' training. Some 15,000 athletes train at the center every year, representing nearly 40 percent of the athletes competing in Paris for the summer Games.
Why this is so cool: AI and big data are taking athletic training to the next level. Smart swim goggles gather stroke efficiency data in real time. Aerodynamic sensors strapped to bicycles help improve riders' postures on the bike for maximum speeds. Force-plate technology gathers data from a sensor mat about an athlete's center of balance. And in the High-Altitude Training Center, workout rooms can be set to mimic precise temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure-conditions of future competition sites.
What the experts say: "This is big. This AI revolution is big not only for sports but even for the workforce organizations and how they leverage that data," says Lorena Martin, an assistant professor of clinical data sciences and operations at the University of Southern California. The sensors have been around for decades, she says, but AI algorithms are able to fine-tune the output of the data to improve athletic performance by real margins. | | | When to Test for Brain Disease | Scientists can now test for early biological indicators of Alzheimer's disease years before any symptoms set in. Such tests include screens for particular biomarkers or certain genes strongly associated with developing dementia from Alzheimer's Disease. But the catch is that no broad treatment yet exists for this debilitating condition. New guidelines released this summer indicate that doctors should not test any asymptomatic people except when doing research projects.
A tricky problem: With early testing, people who learn that they are at high risk for developing Alzheimer's disease may experience workplace or insurance discrimination. Friends, family members, or even clients might view someone with biomarkers for Alzheimer's differently. Those with positive diagnostic tests may live with the stress of not knowing if or when their minds might start to slip. But waiting to treat the condition (at the point when symptoms of dementia finally begin, if it ever does) is in many ways too late.
What the experts say: "It's a pretty amazing moment," says Emily A. Largent, an associate professor of medical ethics and chief of the Division of Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania. "But... the science is really outpacing policy right now. We are having all these changes in the midst of a system that needs to find new ethical, legal, social, clinical ways of helping patients and families. | | | • Japanese honeybees use their wings to slap back ants trying to invade their hive. Watch here. It's very satisfying. | 2 min read | | | • Ant├│nio Guterres, Secretary General of the UN, called for world leaders to take strong steps to protect people from extreme heat. | 3 min read | | | • Infections of brain-eating amoebas are almost always fatal (and thankfully rare). But new treatments are on the way. | 7 min read | | | SPONSORED CONTENT BY UNIVERSITY PARIS CIT├Й | Resistance: The secrets of a long life in sports | While sports are beneficial at any age, our physical fitness ultimately wanes. This is a natural and irreversible process. But it can be slowed down. | | | • Dungeons and Dragons, the table-top role-playing game, is updating its nomenclature. Elves, dwarfs and orcs, previously referred to as "races" in the game will soon be called "species." Scholars such as Benjamin Carpenter of the University of East Anglia have noted that the races labeled as "evil" in the game had analogues that were sometimes associated with real-world racial and ethnic minority groups, essentially weaving in old prejudices and stereotypes through the game, writes Steven Dashiell, a social scientist who studies male-dominated subcultures. "Nostalgia and persistence are powerful; they both have a hand in the continued success of Dungeons & Dragons. But they also hamper the possibility of change, even for the right reasons," he says. | 5 min read | | | Here is today's Spellements! Reply to this email or write to games@sciam.com if you spot any missing science words from today's puzzle. Shout out to game-whiz and reader Seth who saw that "convolve" (the verb form of the mathematical term "convolution") was missing from yesterday's Spellements. Nice spot, Seth! | | | Have you been keeping up with the Olympics? It's always heartening to see so-called "old" athletes like swimmer Katie Ledecky (age 27!) thoroughly trounce the competition. Athletic prowess is one of the few things that declines with age, fortunately meaning that, for most of us, our gold medal achievements can happen any time! | Reach out and tell me about your favorite Olympic events, and any other thoughts at: newsletters@sciam.com. Until tomorrow! | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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