Kickstart: New cleats and (hopefully) fewer knee injuries

New shoe technology — and a new concept in cleats — could reduce the injury potential for players in the FIFA Women's World Cup that begins July 20.

Nike's newest soccer shoe, the Phantom Luna, studied about 350 female players' feet over two years. That research resulted in not only an updated fit for women's feet but also a circular cleat pattern to allow users to pivot during play without putting as much stress on the knee.

Yale University's School of Medicine noted in 2020 that a female athlete is two to eight times more likely to suffer an ACL tear in the knee than men. That may be due to physical differences between men and women — women have a wider pelvis, which changes the mechanics of how the upper leg, knee and lower leg function, Yale Medicine noted. At the same time, female athletes haven't been the focus of as many studies as men, so there's more to learn.

In The Guardian, Sophie Downey reported that 25 percent of the female nominees for soccer's Ballon d'Or prize had ACL injuries at some point this season. It wasn't until 2020, Downey wrote, that women's specific cleats were put on the market — first by Ida Sports, followed by Puma and now global sportswear giant Nike this year.

Diversity outreach programs have been getting a lot more coverage in the past few years, but they aren't exactly new. As our sister paper Automotive News writes, automakers have invested billions of dollars into minority supplier programs for more than 50 years.

General Motors was the first automaker to begin a minority supplier program in 1968. The same year, Ford Motor Co. launched an "inner-city supplier development project" which became its supplier diversity program in 1978.

Chrysler, now owned by Stellantis NV, launched its diversity program in 1983.

These are big programs with a role to play in opening the door for companies wanting to make the leap to working with global corporations. GM spends about $7 billion with minority suppliers each year. Chrysler has done more than $100 billion in business over the lifetime of its program, while Ford has spent more than $161 billion.

This isn't about plastics specifically, but a warning regarding how you conduct business. More specifically, a warning about the symbols you use to conduct business.

A Canadian judge has ruled that the use of an emoji thumbs-up symbol during a text exchange is legally binding for a contract.

The case from Saskatchewan involves a farmer who used the emoji to reply to a text that included a contract for the delivery of a flax crop, the CBC writes. The farmer argued that the symbol was intended to let the grain elevator company know that he'd received the information, not that he was signing onto it.

Justice Timothy Keene said the case may be new, but emojis are now common communication tools.

"This court cannot (nor should it) attempt to stem the tide of technology and common usage," Keene wrote in his decision. "This appears to be the new reality in Canadian society and courts will have to be ready to meet the new challenges that may arise from the use of emojis and the like."