Daily Bafflements

• Excited for the Super Bowl this weekend? We hate to be a buzzkill, but, participation in youth football now appears to have long-lasting neurological effects. Alan Neuhauser in U.S. News & World Report writes on a study showing that NFL players who also played the sport as little kids “appear ‘significantly’ more likely to suffer memory loss and mental health issues than those who begin playing later.”

• “Seneca, ancient hypocrite without peer, never let philosophical commitments interfere with his devotion to conspicuous consumption,” writes Arts & Letters Daily of Elizabeth Kolbert’s new piece in The New Yorker.

• You’ll never guess what a new San Francisco start-up that purports to modernize consumer lending with data science is called. Okay, we’ll tell you: it’s “Earnest.” Another start-up featured in the same New York Times piece, one that uses similar technology on student loans, is called “Affirm.”

• In the Washington Post, Chuck Lane explains Obama’s 529 college plan in great detail, but the main takeaway is “The high cost of a college education is gradually driving America insane.”