Sports-helmet maker Riddell on Tuesday announced it will join Phoenix-based TGen to study concussion detection and treatment to better monitor football players, research that could lead to development of safer helmets.
Both entities said the study will combine players’ genetic information with Riddell’s monitoring technology, which provides information on the number and severity of head blows suffered during games and practice. The study will focus first on football but may expand to include hockey, baseball, cycling and other sports.

Metro Phoenix has fewer days of bad smog and year-round soot but its air still ranks among the most polluted in the nation, according to the American Lung Association.
The association’s annual air-quality report, issued Wednesday, ranked Phoenix as the 18th most-polluted metropolitan region as measured by year-round particle pollution. The Phoenix area ranked No. 7 last year and No. 2 in 2011.

Arijit Guha, an Arizona State University doctoral student who gained national attention after Aetna’s top executive agreed to cover Guha’s extensive chemotherapy bills resulting from colon-cancer treatment, died Friday. He was 32.
His wife, Heather Ehlers, set up a Facebook page celebrating “Arijit, Life and Hope” that had attracted nearly 1,000 “likes” as of Monday afternoon. She described him as a rabble-rouser, do-gooder and mustache enthusiast who lived a life of “love, optimism, joy, humor and compassion.”