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Justin Bieber teases his long-awaited seventh album – NBC10 Philadelphia

Justin Bieber is teasing his long-awaited seventh studio album — apparently called “Swag” — with a series of billboards and social media posts Thursday.

Billboards depicting Bieber were found by fans in Reykjavik, Iceland and Los Angeles with the word “Swag.” The singer also shared images of billboards on his official Instagram account that appeared to depict a tracklist that includes song names like “All I Can Take,” “Walking Away,” “Dadz Love” and “Forgiveness.”

No details on when the album would drop were included. The Hollywood Reporter, which was first to report the album was nearing release, said it would arrive on streaming services Friday.

Bieber, the two-time Grammy Award winning singer and Canadian pop idol who revolutionized teen pop and social media fame, is best known for his silky R&B pop lyric tenor, demonstrated on the diamond-selling “Baby,” “Sorry,” and “Stay” with the Kid Laroi. At the beginning of his career, and as a tween, Bieber began working with Usher and the influential music manager Scooter Braun.

Selena Gomez is baring her heart in her and fiancé Benny Blanco’s new album, “I Said I Love You First,” with many candid songs inspired by her past and present. One of the album’s standout tracks is “You Said You Were Sorry,” in which Selena sings about being happy in love with a new partner, while also finding healing from a dream where an ex apologized.

In 2023, Bieber sold the rights to his music — all six of his albums, including hits like “Sorry” and “Baby” — to Hipgnosis, a U.K-based music investment company. The deal’s financial details were not disclosed, but Billboard Magazine reports that the sale was worth an estimated $200 million.

In August 2024, Bieber and his wife, the model Hailey Bieber (nee Baldwin), announced the birth of their first child, Jack Blues Bieber.

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July 10, 2025
PPP’s Gilani acquitted in 9 more TDAP cases

KARACHI:

The Federal Anti-Corruption Court has acquitted Senate Chairman Yousuf Raza Gilani in nine cases related to the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) mega corruption scandal.

The court announced its verdict on Thursday on Gilani’s acquittal pleas. The PPP leader, who served as the country’s prime minister between 2008 and 2012, appeared in court during the hearing along with other co-accused.

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had registered 26 cases in relation to the scandal. Gilani had already been acquitted in three of those cases previously.

Speaking to the media after the hearing, the Senate chairman said he had been facing these cases for 12 years. “Some of those who were then students are now appearing as prosecutors in the case. Delay in justice is equivalent to denial of justice,” he said.

Gilani’s lawyer Farooq H. Naek, speaking to the media, said a total of 26 cases were registered in 2013-14 despite the fact that similar allegations were levelled in all of them.

“Yousuf Raza Gilani was accused of receiving Rs5 million [as kickback], not directly but allegedly through a person named Zubair. No witness ever claimed that Gilani personally received the money. The court had already acquitted him in three cases. Now, nine more acquittals have been granted,” he said.

Naek said the FIA’s appeal against the acquittals was pending in a high court.

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July 10, 2025
Beyond tariffs: Chinese state-owned enterprises in the trade war

The US and China are engaged in an unprecedented trade war (Amiti et al. 2019, Fajgelbaum et al. 2020, Flaaen et al. 2020, Cavallo et al. 2021, Benguria et al. 2022, Blanchard et al. 2024, Chen et al. 2024, Chor and Li 2024, Handley et al. 2025, Flaaen and Pierce, forthcoming). In this context, tariffs have been the most visible tool of trade policy, and their effects have been widely documented. Beyond tariffs, anecdotal evidence points to the use of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) as an additional lever to restrict imports from the US. In recent research (Benguria and Saffie 2025), we provide systematic evidence on the role of Chinese SOEs in the trade war during the period 2018-2019.

To motivate this issue, consider the case of crude petroleum oil (see Figure 1). All Chinese imports of this product from the US go through SOEs. While this product did not face retaliatory tariffs by China during the period shown in the figure, trade flows fell drastically and were exactly zero in August through October 2018 and January 2019.

Figure 1 US exports of crude petroleum oil to China and to the rest of the world

Note: This figure plots US exports of crude petroleum oil (HS 4-digit code 2709) to China and to the rest of the world. For exports to China, months with exports equal to zero are marked in black. This industry had a 100% state-owned firm import share in 2015.
Source: Benguria and Saffie (2025).

To analyse the role of Chinese SOEs more systematically, we construct an industry-level measure of the share of Chinese imports from the US that is purchased by Chinese SOEs. This measure is constructed from Chinese imports microdata in 2015. Overall, Chinese SOEs account for a fifth of imports from the US in 2015, but there is wide variation across industries. Based on regression analysis, we find that, after controlling for Chinese tariffs, US exports to China fall more in industries with a higher SOE share. A simple calculation abstracting from general equilibrium effects indicates that while tariffs account for an 8% decline in US exports, the SOE effect accounts for a 4% decline. We also find that taking the SOE effect into consideration does not modify the effects of tariffs on trade volumes estimated by us or others in the literature – it is a separate and quantitatively important channel.

We also provide evidence of the timing of this SOE effect. We find that the SOE effect was stronger during the last months of 2018 and the initial months of 2019. At this point, China had imposed tariffs on nearly all products. In addition, the effect was more important in some sectors than others. It was larger among agricultural goods and industrial supplies – for example, among agricultural goods, the SOE effect is about five times larger than the overall effect described earlier, accounting for a 19% decline in US exports. Further, we see that the SOE effect was concentrated among ‘Republican industries’, that is, industries with production concentrated in counties with large share of Republican votes. This is in line with previous work that has found that Chinese tariffs also hit mostly Republican counties (Fajgelbaum et al. 2020, Fetzer and Schwarz 2021).

Further, we show that this SOE effect is robust to alternative explanations and empirical specifications. With a triple-difference specification based on exports to China and the rest of the world, we see that the decline of US exports in high-SOE industries is China-specific, as we would expect during the trade war. In addition, it is robust to allowing for a differential tariff pass-through in high-SOE industries. Further, we show that it is not confounded by other industry features such as the intensity of related-party trade or of China’s processing trade customs regime. We also show that the SOE effect is not driven by emblematic sectors like oil or soybeans.

The example in Figure 1 shows that, for crude petroleum oil, US exports to China fell to exactly zero in some months. Motivated by this, we also examine whether the SOE effect had an impact on the extensive margin of trade. In other words, we ask whether some products stopped being imported entirely due to the SOE effect. We find that the overall effect on the extensive margin across all sectors is negative but not statistically significant. However, among agricultural goods, we find that the action of SOEs did have a statistically significant effect reducing US exports at the extensive margin, lowering by 4% the probability of observing trade flows of a given product.

To further establish this SOE effect, we also study data on Chinese imports from the rest of the world (i.e. excluding the US). With these data, we find that in industries with high SOE shares, China increased imports from the rest of the world during the trade war. Further, the timing coincides with the SOE effect found in US exports to China.

In previous work (Benguria and Saffie 2024), we found that US exports were largely redirected to other destinations in response to Chinese tariffs. In industries facing higher Chinese tariffs, exports to the rest of the world increased. We find that, in contrast, there was no significant export reallocation in response to reduced imports by Chinese SOEs. One possible interpretation of this result is that the SOE effect is less salient and less transparent than tariffs from the perspective of US exporting firms, making reallocation more difficult.

To conclude, we emphasise that while SOEs have been absent from the analysis of trade policy, there is clear evidence from the 2018-2019 trade war episode that they can be used to restrict trade flows. Understanding the role of SOEs is important to capture the full extent of protectionism. Further, SOEs allow for asymmetric protectionism, as they are only available for countries with a large participation of the state in the economy.

In light of current events, there is renewed interest in trade policy (Benigno 2025, Conteduca et al. 2025). As in previous years, much of the focus is on tariffs, which are more visible and easier to quantify. Going forward, a key question is whether SOEs keep playing a relevant role in the ongoing trade war. In addition, there is an emerging literature on the geopolitical dimension of international trade (Bonadio et al. 2024, Freund et al. 2024, Gopinath et al. 2025). This raises the possibility that SOEs also respond to geopolitical concerns amid the process of US-China decoupling.

References

Amiti, M, S J Redding and D E Weinstein (2019), “The impact of the 2018 tariffs on prices and welfare”, Journal of Economic Perspectives 33(4).

Benguria, F, J Choi, D Swenson and M Xu (2022), “Anxiety or pain? The impact of tariffs and uncertainty on Chinese firms in the trade war”, Journal of International Economics 137.

Benguria, F and F Saffie (2025), “Beyond tariffs: How did China’s state–owned enterprises shape the US–China trade war?”, NBER Working Paper no. 33599.

Benguria, F and F Saffie (2024), “Escaping the trade war: Finance and relational supply chains in the adjustment to trade policy shocks”, Journal of International Economics 152.

Benigno, G (2025), “Why the tariffs caused turmoil in financial markets”, VoxEU.org, 11 April.

Blanchard, E J, C P Bown and D Chor (2024), “Did Trump’s trade war impact the 2018 election?”, Journal of International Economics 148.

Bonadio, B, Z Huo, E Kang, A A Levchenko, N Pandalai-Nayar, H Toma and P Topalova (2024), “Playing with blocs: Quantifying decoupling”, Working Paper.

Cavallo, A, G Gopinath, B Neiman and J Tang (2021), “Tariff pass-through at the border and at the store: Evidence from US trade policy”, American Economic Review: Insights 3(1).

Chen, T, C-T Hsieh and Z M Song (2024), “Non-tariff barriers in the US-China trade war”, Working Paper.

Chor, D and B Li (2024), “Illuminating the effects of the US-China tariff war on China’s economy”, Journal of International Economics 150.

Conteduca, F P, M Mancini and A Borin (2025), “Roaring tariffs: The global impact of the 2025 US trade war”, VoxEU.org, 6 May.

Fetzer, T and C Schwarz (2021), “Tariffs and politics: Evidence from Trump’s trade wars”, The Economic Journal 131(636).

Flaaen, A, A Hortaçsu and F Tintelnot (2020), “The production relocation and price effects of US trade policy: the case of washing machines”, American Economic Review 110(7).

Flaaen, A and J R Pierce (forthcoming), “Disentangling the effects of the 2018-2019 tariffs on a globally connected US manufacturing sector”, Review of Economics and Statistics.

Freund, C, A Mattoo, A Mulabdic and M Ruta (2024), “Is US trade policy reshaping global supply chains?”, Journal of International Economics 152.

Gopinath, G, P-O Gourinchas, A Presbitero and P Topalova (2025), “Changing global linkages: A new Cold War?”, Journal of International Economics 153.

Handley, K, F Kamal and R Monarch (2025), “Rising import tariffs, falling exports: When modern supply chains meet old-style protectionism”, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 17(1).

Khandelwal, A K, P D Fajgelbaum, P K Goldberg and P J Kennedy (2020) “The return to protectionism”, The Quarterly Journal of Economics 135(1).

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July 10, 2025
‘Autofocus’ specs promise sharp vision, near or far

Chris Baraniuk

Technology Reporter

IXI

“People don’t want to look like cyborgs,” says Niko Eiden

They look like an ordinary pair of glasses – but these are tech-packed specs.

On a Zoom call, Niko Eiden, chief executive and co-founder of Finnish eyewear firm IXI, holds up the frames with lenses containing liquid crystals, meaning their vision-correcting properties can change on the fly.

This one pair could correct the vision of someone who normally uses totally different pairs of glasses for seeing near or far.

“These liquid crystals… we can rotate them with an electrical field,” explains Mr Eiden.

“It’s totally, freely tuneable.” The position of those crystals affects the passage of light through the lenses. A built-in eye-tracker allows the glasses to respond to whatever correction the wearer needs at a given moment.

However, tech-laden eyewear has a troubled history – take Google’s ill-fated “Glass” smart glasses.

Consumer acceptability is key, acknowledges Mr Eiden. Most people don’t want to look like cyborgs: “We need to make our products actually look like existing eyewear.”

IXI

IXI glasses have lenses that can be manipulated with an electric field

The market for eyewear tech is likely to grow.

Presbyopia, an age-related condition that makes it harder to focus on things close to you, is projected to become more common over time as the world’s population ages. And myopia, or short-sightedness, is also on the rise.

Spectacles have remained largely the same for decades. Bifocal lenses – in which a lens is split into two regions, usually for either near- or far-sightedness – require the wearer to direct their vision through the relevant region, depending on what they want to look at, in order to see clearly.

Varifocals do a similar job but the transitions are much smoother.

In contrast, auto-focus lenses promise to adjust part or all of the lens spontaneously, and even accommodate the wearer’s changing eyesight over time.

“The first lenses that we produced were horrible,” admits Mr Eiden, candidly.

Those early prototypes were “hazy”, he says, and with the lens quality noticeably poor at its edges.

But newer versions have proved promising in tests, says Mr Eiden. Participants in the company’s trials have been asked, for example, to read something on a page, then look at an object in the distance, to see whether the glasses respond smoothly to the transition.

Mr Eiden says that the eye tracking device within the spectacles cannot determine exactly what a wearer is looking at, though certain activities such as reading are in principle detectable because of the nature of eye movements associated with them.

Since such glasses respond so closely to the wearer’s eye behaviour, it’s important the frames fit well, says Emilia Helin, product director.

IXI’s frames are adjustable but not to a great degree, given the delicate electronics inside, she explains: “We have some flexibility but not full flexibility.” That’s why IXI hopes to ensure that the small range of frames it has designed would suit a wide variety of faces.

The small battery secreted inside IXI’s autofocus frames should last for two days, says Mr Eiden, adding that it’s possible to recharge the specs overnight while the wearer is asleep.

But he won’t be drawn on a launch date, which he intends to reveal later this year. As for cost, I ask whether £1,000 might be the sort of price tag he has in mind. He merely says, “I’m smiling when you say it but I won’t confirm.”

Getty Images

Autofocus lenses could help people who struggle with varifocals or bifocals

Autofocus lenses could help people who struggle with varifocals or bifocals, says Paramdeep Bilkhu, clinical adviser at the College of Optometrists.

However, he adds, “There is insufficient evidence to state whether they perform as well as traditional options and whether they can be used for safety critical tasks such as driving.”

Chi-Ho To, an optometry researcher, at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University has a similar concern – what if the vision correction went wrong or was delayed slightly while he was, say, performing surgery on someone?

“But I think in terms of general use having something that allows autofocusing is a good idea,” he adds.

Mr Eiden notes that the first version of his company’s lenses will not alter the entire lens area. “One can always glance over the dynamic area,” he says. If wholly self-adjusting lenses emerge then safety will become “a much more serious business”, he adds.

In 2013, UK firm Adlens released glasses that allowed wearers to manually change the optical power of the lenses via a small dial on the frames. These lenses contained a fluid-filled membrane, which when compressed in response to dial adjustments would alter its curvature.

Adlens’ current chief executive Rob Stevens says the specs sold for $1,250 (£920) in the US and were “well received by consumers” but not so much by opticians, which he says “strangled sales”.

Since then, technology has moved on and the concept of lenses that refocus themselves automatically, without manual interventions, has emerged.

Like IXI and other companies, Adlens is working on glasses that do this. However, Mr Stevens declines to confirm a launch date.

Joshua Silver, an Oxford University physicist, founded Adlens but no longer works for the company.

He came up with the idea of fluid-filled adjustable lenses back in 1985 and developed glasses that could be tuned to the wearer’s needs and then permanently set to that prescription.

Such lenses have enabled roughly 100,000 people in 20 countries to access vision correcting technology. Prof Silver is currently seeking investment for a venture called Vision, which would further rollout these glasses.

As for more expensive, electronics-filled auto-focus specs, he questions whether they will have broad appeal: “Wouldn’t [people] just go and buy reading glasses, which would more or less do the same thing for them?”

Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Prof Chi-Ho To has developed a lens which slows short-sightedness

Other specs tech is even slowing down the progression of eye conditions such as myopia, beyond just correcting for them.

Prof To has developed glasses lenses that have a honeycomb-like ring in them. Light passing through the centre of the ring, focused as normal, reaches the wearer’s retina and allows them to see clearly.

However, light passing through the ring itself is defocused slightly meaning that the peripheral retina gets a slightly blurred image.

This appears to slow improper eyeball growth in children, which Prof To says cuts the rate of short-sightedness progression by 60%. Glasses with this technology are now in use in more than 30 countries, he adds.

British firm SightGlass has a slightly different approach – glasses that gently reduce the contrast of someone’s vision to similarly affect eye growth and myopia progression.

While autofocus glasses and other high-tech solutions may have promise, Prof To has an even bigger goal: glasses that don’t just slow down myopia but actually reverse it slightly – a tantalising prospect that could improve the vision of potentially billions of people.

“There is growing evidence that you can do it,” teases Prof To.

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July 10, 2025
PTI’s Qaiser acquitted in Azadi March case

ISLAMABAD:

A lower court in Islamabad on Thursday acquitted former National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser in a case linked to the 2022 Azadi March.

Judicial Magistrate Abbas Shah announced the reserved verdict, approving the acquittal request submitted by Asad Qaiser in the Azadi March case.

The case was registered at Kohsar Police Station during the political protests led by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf. Qaiser was among several party leaders accused of violating public order during the march.

During the hearing, Qaiser’s legal team argued that the charges were politically motivated and lacked sufficient evidence.

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July 10, 2025
Government inheriting poor value assets due to bad handling of PFI contracts, watchdog says | Private finance initiative

Bad management of private finance contracts is leading to poor quality assets being handed back to the government, including schools and hospitals, according to parliament’s spending watchdog.

Its report into the use of private finance initiatives (PFI) for infrastructure comes at a time when the government has identified private investment in projects such as power plants and transport outside London as a key part of its growth agenda.

However, the public accounts committee (PAC) is warning that a series of problems with PFI deals could put the government’s ambitions to attract investors for such schemes “in jeopardy”.

Setting out a series of recommendations to ministers, MPs on the committee said that UK infrastructure risked becoming “stony ground” for investors unless major changes were made.

PFI took off under Tony Blair’s government, which saw it as a way of building key public projects without adding to the national debt. However, these deals have long been controversial, and not have always been seen to provide value for money to taxpayers.

More than 650 public sector organisations have their buildings, IT and essential infrastructure managed by a private consortium under a PFI deal, and state bodies are set to pay £136bn in unitary charges for these contracts until 2052-3.

Half of the contracts – covering hospitals, schools and transport – are set to expire during the next decade. The PAC report called on ministers to ensure such contracts were carefully managed so that private sector firms complied with their contractual obligations and “only quality assets are handed back” to government.

Last year a report by the Association of Infrastructure Investors in Public Private Partnerships warned that schools and hospitals that depend on PFI contracts were in danger of “severe disruption” unless they could find a way to cope once those contracts expire.

MPs on the PAC are also calling for a more comprehensive framework for how risk is shared between the public and private sector when they work in partnership, particularly after the high-profile collapse of the outsourcing company Carillion, which halted work on new hospitals in Liverpool and Birmingham.

The government also needs to provide detailed information on the pipeline of future projects in order to attract new investors, according to the PAC, amid a current lack of data about the past performance of projects or when future ones will be delivered.

“Our scrutiny has found a woefully obscured picture for any seeking to invest in big infrastructure projects in the UK, with a corresponding drain of skills overseas,” said Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chair of the PAC.

“Without a long-term, consistent pipeline giving an idea of what to expect in years to come, UK infrastructure risks becoming stony ground for any investor.”

The PAC is calling on the Treasury to identify which financing models it would support for money for different types of projects, such as energy, transport or communication, to attract investors and drive competition.

A central database covering private finance for infrastructure investment should be published, according to the report, to help the Treasury to deliver value for money, given the huge amounts of money involved in such projects, such as the £14.2bn pledged by the government for the Sizewell C nuclear power station in Suffolk.

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July 10, 2025
CNY/USD: Dollar Losing Allure for Chinese Traders Creates Runway for Yuan

Chinese traders are pulling back from the dollar, helping ease a shortage that has rattled the banking system and setting the yuan up for further gains.

The dollar’s premium over the yuan, as reflected in 12-month swap points, has narrowed by 25% since the end of December. Chinese state-owned banks have gradually shifted from wanting dollars to reducing their demand for it, to offering it out, according to traders who declined to be identified as they’re not authorized to speak publicly.

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July 10, 2025
China Stocks Narrow Gap With Hong Kong on Policy Optimism

After lagging Hong Kong stocks by the most since 2008, Chinese equities are showing signs of catching up as valuations and optimism over policy support rekindle investor interest.

The onshore market had lacked momentum for months, while shares in Hong Kong rallied on the back of technology and new consumer themes. A nascent reversal is taking place in July, as investors bet on positive policy messaging from the Politburo meeting and more action following Beijing’s campaign to curb aggressive price competition in key industries.

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July 10, 2025
Japan a Prime Destination for Global Investors Amid Trump Tariffs, Pimco Says

Japan has emerged as a prime destination for global investors as the trade war triggers a reassessment of capital flows into the US, according to Pacific Investment Management Co.

The Asian nation is drawing inflows that seek to benefit from “once-in-a-generation structural reforms” in equities and rising rates in fixed income after decades of monetary stimulus, according to Ben Ferguson, co-head of Pimco in Japan. US President Donald Trump’s policy announcements have been “disruptive” and the latest tariff announcements “highlight the need to, at least consider diversification,” he added.

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July 10, 2025
Rugby headgear can’t prevent concussion – but new materials could soften the blows over a career

The widely held view among rugby players, coaches and officials is that headgear can’t prevent concussion. If so, why wear it? It’s hot, it can block vision and hearing, and it can be uncomfortable.

Headgear was originally designed to protect players from cuts and abrasions. But players still hope it will offer them a degree of protection against the collisions they experience in the game. Some players adopt it after previous concussions.

We’re now seeing increasing numbers of professional players opting in. The Irish men’s team, for example, field up to five players each match sporting headgear. In Japan, it’s mandatory for juniors. And more parents in New Zealand are making their children wear it, too.

The exact specifications for rugby match kit – boots, shorts, shoulder pads and
headgear – are regulated through World Rugby’s Law 4 and Regulation 12. In 2019, the governing body launched a trial enabling players to wear headgear with new technical specifications in training and matches.

The specifications have meant manufacturers can take advantage of novel “isotropic” materials that can potentially reduce the impact forces experienced by players.

Conventional headgear is composed of soft foams that flatten when a player’s head collides with the ground or another player. As such, they can only minimally absorb those collision forces.

Isotropic materials behave differently. They can absorb impacts from multiple directions and may offer a level of protection against the effects on a player’s head of a tackle or other collision event.

Given these changes, and in light of recent research, we may need to change the narrative around rugby headgear: while it may not prevent concussion, it might reduce the total contact “burden” experienced by players in a game and over a whole season. And this could have benefits for long-term brain health.

Impacts across seasons and careers

Contact in rugby – through tackles, at the breakdown, and in scrums and lineouts – leads to players experiencing a number of collisions or “head acceleration events”. This contact is most commonly head to ground, head to body or head to head.

By having players use “smart” mouthguards with embedded micro-accelerometers and gyroscopes to capture head movements, researchers can now measure each collision and each player’s contact load in a game – and potentially over a career.

A player’s total contact load is found by adding together the magnitude of the impacts they experience in a game. These are measured as “peak linear accelerations” or “peak rotational accelerations”.

While past research and media attention has focused on concussion, it has become clear the total contact burden in training and matches – the total “sub-concussive knocks” through head acceleration events – may be as important, if not more so.

One of our own research projects involved following 40 under-16 players wearing smart mouthguards for all training and matches across one season. Peak Linear accelerations are measured as a g-force (g). Activities such as such as running, jumping and shaking the head would measure under 8g, for example, whereas heading a soccer ball might measure 31g.

The results of our study showed the players differed greatly in their cumulative exposure over a whole season, from 300g to nearly 14,000g. These differences would be amplified further over an entire rugby career.

Some of the variation is likely due to a player’s team position, with loose forwards having a greater burden than others. But it also seems some players just enjoy the contact aspects of the game more than others.

Rugby is an impact sport: the Ireland and England women’s teams clash in 2025.
Getty Images

Potential benefits of new headgear materials

Researcher Helen Murray at the University of Auckland has highlighted the need for more research into the burden of collisions, rather than just concussions, over a rugby career. In particular, we need to know more about its effect on future brain health.

We hope to contribute to this by following our existing cohort of players through their careers. In the meantime, our research has examined the potential of existing rugby headgear and new isotropic materials to mitigate peak accelerations in rugby collisions.

Using the field data collected from male and female players over the past four seasons, we have designed laboratory testing protocols to compare the conventional and newer materials.

The results suggest the new forms of headgear do have the potential to reduce the impact burden for players.

We found 55–90% of head acceleration events do involve direct contact with the head. As such, collision-mitigation headgear could be beneficial. And our laboratory testing produced an estimated 30% reduction in peak linear accelerations with the headgear compared to without.

The nature of concussion is complex and related to the size of an impact as well as its direction and angle. For instance, we observed the concussions experienced by the junior players occurred between 12g and 62g – well below the male threshold of 70g requiring professional players to be removed from the field for a head injury assessment.

Currently, it seems unlikely headgear can prevent concussion. But it does appear new headgear materials could significantly reduce the total impact burden for players during their careers. And this may help safeguard their future brain health.

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July 10, 2025