Researchers have released the results of a study that show adding magnets to football helmets could reduce the risk of concussions. The helmets would literally repel each other, reducing the force of collision.

When football players run into each other on the field at, say, 20 miles per hour, they can generate as much as 150 G’s of force. That’s prime concussion territory if those hits are helmet to helmet. But researchers experimenting with magnets in the helmets, which would create an opposing force and actually slow down the collision, said that force drops to less than 100 G’s.

Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University claim that can reduce the risk of concussion by as much as 80 percent without affecting the timing or intensity of the game.

Here in the Valley, 40 Arizona State University football players are voluntarily wearing helmets that provide real-time head–impact data as part of a brain research project in association with the Translational Genomics Center in Phoenix.