Too many people overheat or are gravely injured playing sports like football. The latest answer to the crisis is the Hothead helmet, which monitors cranial heat, wirelessly alerting coaches when the wearer runs the risk of heat exhaustion.
It's a good idea, and combined with this technology, which monitors the force of impacts to the head, we could soon see the perfect helmet to make football an all-around safer activity. If that's what we want to do.
I can't be more clear: I don't like seeing kids dying out on the football field, or afterward because no one knew how badly they were injured or overheated. But the sporting culture seems to demand human sacrifice.
Why do pro boxers eschew the helmet that amateur Olympian pugilists are required to wear? Why are there entire insanely funny movies devoted to the fact that hockey got boring when it eased up on rink bloodshed? And why is it that most people only remember the car races where somebody flips up into the catchfence and scatters debris into the grandstand? Think it over. [PopSci]