Over the next several weeks, an agency that investigates doping in the US, the eponymous US Anti-Doping Agency, will send its findings on disgraced cycling champion Lance Armstrong to the International Union of Cyclists. The report will clear up some questions. It has already answered one, before anyone's read the report: why, after more than a decade of cat and mouse, did Lance Armstrong stop fighting accusations of cheating in bike races now? Many of Armstrong's former associates have spent the past month saying that the big surprise in Armstrong's case, more than his guilt, is that he ... Read More
Data Dump: Lance Armstrong Looks Even More Screwed This Morning
September 25, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Head Games: Brain Injuries Intercept Football
September 23, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
The 2012 football season got underway earlier this month—cue the nachos, Coors Light mini-kegs, and incessant Tim Tebow memes—and just hours before the first kickoff, the NFL made big news in the quietest way possible. In a press release posted to the Web, commissioner Roger Goodell announced a $30 million donation—the largest in league history—to a foundation supporting the National Institutes of Health, seed money for accelerated research into traumatic brain injuries and neurodegenerative diseases. “This research will extend beyond the NFL playing field and benefit athletes at all ... Read More
‘Power Gloat’ Ready to Take the Field
August 14, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Back in 2010 we told you about how “power poses”—open, expansive positions of the body—actually made test subjects feel more powerful, leading them to be more self-confident and presumably more successful. At the time we pointed to even earlier research that the process of raising our arms upward resulted in more positive thoughts, which again presumably is a milepost on the track to success. Now, thanks to CNN’s Rose Hoare, we've been reminded of an excellent example of such “embodied cognition”: Usain Bolt. His so-called lightning pose, with one arm pointing to the ... Read More
Today in Mysterious Athletic Tape: Now It’s for Horses Too
August 9, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Debate continues to rage over the effectiveness of Kinesio Tape, the colorful substance so many London Olympians, Tour de France cyclists, and other super-people are swearing by to reduce pain from sports injuries. Like soccer's mystery spray, the rash-like stuff seems to pop up everywhere, and has received significant press attention and a lot of skepticism. The athletes, who just want to win, don't seem to care about the polemic, and plenty seem to think the tape helps. It's started to show up on horses. What's less understood is how it became so omnipresent. "Kiniseo Taping" is a ... Read More
How Fast Is Usain Bolt?
August 6, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Yesterday Usain Bolt won the Men’s 100-meter final in 9.63 seconds. He is faster than an elephant (but slightly slower than a housecat). He is the fastest man on two legs, and by some accounts is "the most naturally gifted athlete the world has ever seen." But how does he stack up against other Olympic speedsters? Over at Engineering Sport, a blog of British engineers, Leon Foster tracked the average speeds of various individual Olympic sports. Bolt (23.4 mph) sits right in the middle of the pack; faster than freestyle swimmers (5.3 mph), rowers (11.36 mph) and triathletes (18.2 mph), but ... Read More
MLB Prediction: Cardinals to Lead NL in Wins
March 28, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Another Cardinals-Rangers World Series? It’s entirely possible, according to mathematician Bruce Bukiet. St. Louis fans may not have particularly high hopes for the 2012 Major League Baseball season, given the fact they’ve lost manager Tony La Russa to retirement and all-star Albert Pujols to free agency. But they have reasons for optimism, according to Bukiet, who has just announced his projections for the 2012 season. Bukiet’s model suggests the Cardinals should win 94 games — the most in the National League. He further predicts the Philadelphia Phillies and Arizona ... Read More
Why LeBron Can’t Take the Heat
February 24, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
For social scientists, the National Basketball Association isn’t simply a source of pulse-pounding excitement, it’s a laboratory that yields insights into human behavior. As the strike-shortened season settles into its groove, we examine some NBA-related studies that have dribbled out in recent months, exploring such game-changing factors as performance-sapping stress, unconscious racism, and the power of positive momentum. Chokehold: LeBron Explained Do world-class athletes choke under pressure? Evidence from the NBA suggests the answer is yes — but only during the final minute of ... Read More
Better Super Bowl Makes for Better Ads
February 3, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
A curious thing sometimes happens when we watch a violent movie, or a thrilling TV show, or when we listen to, say, Al Green. Afterward, we take that aggression or excitement that we’ve just built up and apply it to whatever’s at hand. Academics have a name for this phenomenon: excitation transfer theory. You might want to remember this as you’re watching some entertainment ripe for serious suspense this Sunday — the Super Bowl. “As you’re watching a suspenseful game, there’s a certain level of arousal that develops,” said Colleen Bee, an assistant professor of marketing ... Read More
Brams: Kick Coin Flips Out of NFL Overtimes
December 27, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
As an example of the broad interests and proposed solutions of Steven J. Brams, a New York University professor of politics, in 2011, he offered an alternative way for the National Football League to determine which team gets the ball first when games go into overtime. In February, NYU announced that Brams and James Jorasch, founder of Science House, an organization that brings together science and business, adapted some ideas about fair division of goods to take the randomness out of NFL overtime periods. Most ties in the NFL are resolved with one team winning a coin flip and electing ... Read More
College Football Wins Lower Guys’ GPA
December 21, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
As the college football season approaches its climax, a just-released set of statistics should give fans of Bowl-bound teams pause. According to three University of Oregon economists, when a university’s football team has a winning season, the grade point average of male students goes down. At least, that was the case at their own school over the course of nine recent seasons. Given that the University of Oregon is “largely representative of other four-year public institutions,” they have no reason to believe the equation won’t apply elsewhere. “Our estimates suggest male ... Read More
