football
dr. dolittle | February 25, 2016 By Hector Bottai (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
I just read an interesting blog entry from I Spy Physiology describing how woodpeckers avoid getting concussions even though they routinely bang their heads. By routinely, I mean an impressive 12,000 times a day approximately. I was amazed to learn that each time a woodpecker taps a tree, the impact is about 10 times that of an average hit in football. Turns out woodpeckers have an anatomical advantage. To find out what that advantage is, visit the blog!
milhayser | January 28, 2015When it was reported that many of the footballs in the AFC Championship game were inflated below the required minimum pressure, the triumphant New England Patriots were accused of cheating. Looking for an explanation, Chad Orzel whipped out some footballs, a freezer, and the Ideal Gas Law to do some delving. Physically, air pressure depends on the volume of a gas, the number of molecules contained therein, and temperature. Since the volume of a football (versus a balloon) doesn't change much depending on how much air is inside, a change in temperature was the best chance for an innocent…
gregladen | January 4, 2014Utah has gay marriage. Say no more. It's officially over at the highest levels, folks. You can't spend decades legislating and ordering equality from the chambers of congress, statehouses, and the benches of the high courts before, eventually, it becomes part of our culture to assume that the state and society supports equality even if an obnoxiously large minority of citizens does not. Struggle is followed by reluctant acceptance and regulation which is followed by shifting norms. What happens then is interesting: You have to shut up. STFU in fact. If you are really against equal…
pgleick | July 16, 2013
The evidence from real-world observations, sophisticated computer models, and research in hundreds of different fields continues to pile up: human-caused climate change is already occurring and will continue to get worse and worse as greenhouse-gas concentrations continue to rise.
Because the climate is connected to every major geophysical, chemical, and biological system on the planet, it should not be surprising that we are learning more and more about the potential implications of these changes for a remarkably wide range of things. And while it is certainly possible – even likely – that…
gregladen | February 2, 2013The Public Religion Research Institute has conducted a poll about the Superbowl They found:
27% of Americans believe that God plays a role in determining which team winds a sporting event.
53% of Americans believe that god rewards athletes who have faith with good health and success
42% of Americans don't think that those 53% of Americans are correct.
By religion, there is variation in the percentage of people who believe that god determines the outcome of sporting events, or that god rewards athletes of faith. They have a graph:
50% of Americans are fine with athletes making public shows…
gregladen | March 21, 2012On January 29th, 2010, I wrote:
I do not appreciate the fact that the New Orleans Saints defense, when playing the superior Minnesota Vikings, clearly designed, practiced, and successfully implemented a strategy that if adopted by other teams and not stopped by new rules, will change the way the sport is played forever. During the playoff game with the Vikings, the Saints' defense got through the Vikings' defensive line and knocked down the quarterback something like 19 times. Not sacked. They knocked him down after he had thrown or passed off the ball. One time there was a penalty, and the…
lborkowski | May 9, 2011The Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University's School of Medicine has announced that former NFL player Dave Duerson, who committed suicide at the age of 50 and left a request that his brain go to CSTE, had chronic traumatic encephalopathy. The disorder is linked to repeated brain trauma, and Duerson's family reports that he had at least 10 concussions during his NFL career.
The New York Times' Alan Schwarz, who's been covering the issue of brain damage among football players since 2007, reports that 14 of the 15 brains of football players tested by CSTE have…
lborkowski | February 4, 2011Ben McGrath has an excellent article on "the NFL and the concussion crisis" in the January 31st issue of the New Yorker. It's well worth a read (though it might change the way you see the Superbowl), but the thing I want to highlight is the roles of Alan Schwarz and the New York Times in raising the public's awareness of a problem that pervades football. (For our international readers, I'm referring to the US version of football - I realize that word means something different in the rest of the world.)
Specifically, the problem is the effects of repeated brain trauma, which football players…
grrlscientist | July 6, 2010tags: Paul the Prognosticating Octopus Oracle Sez, soccer, football, World Cup 2010, fun, offbeat, weird, news
Paul the Prognosticating Octopus Oracle has disappointed his German fans by choosing Spain over Germany in tomorrow's World Cup Football match. Paul is a two-year-old English-born octopus of unknown species who has lived in the aquarium in Oberhausen, Germany since shortly after he was born.
Image: Mark Keppler / DAPD
This is a bummer for all those German fans who believe in tooth fairies and Santa Claus, because Paul the Prognosticating Octopus Oracle of Unknown Species (PPOOUS…
grrlscientist | June 30, 2010tags: How Can You Filter Out The Vuvuzela?, World Cup 2010, physics, technology, football, soccer, sports, television, Sixty Symbols, University of Nottingham, streaming video
A University of Nottingham video explains the physics that underlies the technology being developed to filter out that annoying drone from 30,000 blasting vuvuzelas in the background of all World Cup football matches. It's interesting to note that this is the same sort of software technology that ornithologists use to record (and "clean up" background noise inadvertently captured by) birdsong recordings.
grrlscientist | June 29, 2010tags: Fútbol Deporte Nacional, Tango y Fútbol, Argentina, Germany, World Cup 2010, soccer, football, Fútbol, satire, streaming video
If the Argentinian fútbol team plays as skillfully and as gracefully as this couple dances the Tango (and the implication is that they will), I think it's no contest: the Germans will lose on Saturday ... just sayin'.
grrlscientist | June 24, 2010tags: Meet Paul, Germany's Prognosticating Octopus, soccer, football, World Cup 2010, fun, offbeat, weird
Paul -- an octopus at the Sea Life public aquarium in Oberhausen, western Germany -- has so far correctly predicted the outcome of each of Germany's World Cup matches. On Tuesday, Paul contemplates Wednesday's match between Germany and Ghana. [larger view]
The World Cup and all the fanfare that surrounds it is truly amazing to experience. But perhaps strangest thing of all is that several zoos and aquariums in Germany have been asking some of their animals to predict the winners to the…
grrlscientist | January 27, 2010tags: Baseball versus Football, sports, social commentary, cultural observation, George Carlin, humor, comedy, fucking hilarious, streaming video
I despise baseball, but enjoy football (and futbol, too). My fellow NYCers were brainless drooling idiots when it came to the Yankees, and I reminded them of this as often as possible. The fact that I am still alive to talk about it means that all you religious wingnuts have yet another defensible "miracle" you can cite. (But that's another video). But here's George Carlin's commentary about baseball (which only serves to further elevate his status…
rallain | December 27, 2009In part I of this post, I talked about the basics of projectile motion with no air resistance. Also in that post, I showed that (without air resistance) the angle to throw a ball for maximum range is 45 degrees. When throwing a football, there is some air resistance this means that 45 degree is not necessarily the angle for the greatest range. Well, can't I just do the same thing as before? It turns out that it is a significantly different problem when air resistance is added. Without air resistance, the acceleration was constant. Not so now, my friend.
The problem is that air…
mikethemadbiologist | December 5, 2009Wherein the Mad Biologist indulges in Compulsive Contrarian Disorder. There's been a lot of talk about the National Football League's new rules about concussions, which force a player to stay out of a game during which he received a concussion. On the one hand, this absolutely is the right thing to do: brain trauma ain't cool.
On the other hand, I think this might increase the attempts to knock players unconscious. If you know that 'ringing a player's bell' will get him tossed from the game, it's open season on star players, especially on those players who have had concussions before. '…
rallain | September 28, 2009I think we are entering a new era. An era where it is quite simple to find and get great videos. Oh, just saw a great tackle on the TV? In the old days, you would have to get that video off the TV yourself. Not anymore. Welcome to the interwebs. Also, the quality is awesome compared to 10 years ago. Here is the video. Yes, I know this is from several weeks ago - I am slow. Also, thanks to the person that put this on youtube - I edited your clip to remove the music and just look at the one collision. You did a good job though.
In terms of video analysis, this isn't too bad of a video…
rallain | February 3, 2009People say I am picky. Ok, sometimes I am. But somebody has to stand up for what is right and just. Maybe I am that person.
Please stop using the word force if you don't know what it is.
There. I said it. You can attack me now.
It wasn't just one thing that got me fired up. It was two things. First, I read this article on physics and football (Physics of 'The Hit' from the NY Times). If it was just this article, I would have let it go and moved on. But no. One of my kids just happened to be watching MythBusters (We all love MythBusters) and there was a discussion that used the term…
sciencewoman | February 1, 2009Another valiant attempt to combine motherhood, teaching prep, and watching the superbowl. Last year I made it to the third quarter before giving up (i.e., Minnow needed my attention for the rest of the evening). Let's see if this year goes any better.
6:22 pm: The TV has been on for about 15 minutes with the various pre-game antic. We shut it off because it's distracting Minnow from eating dinner.
6:29 pm: I'm changing a poopy diaper during opening kickoff. Minnow decides she wants to wear underwear for the next round.
The over-turned first touchdown: I'm dishing up home made apple pie and…
drorzel | January 5, 2009It's NFL playoff time, which means that sports fans will be treated to the sight of the most high-stakes farce in sports, namely the ritual of "bringing out the chains" to determine whether a team has gained enough yards for a first down. We've all seen this: the play is whistled dead, a referee un-stacks the pile of players, picks up the ball, and puts it down more or less where the player was stopped. Then he tosses the ball into the middle of the field, to a second referee, who tries to replicate the spot closer to the center of the field. Then a guy on the sideline carrying a big stick (…
rallain | December 29, 2008In part I of this post, I talked about the basics of projectile motion with no air resistance. Also in that post, I showed that (without air resistance) the angle to throw a ball for maximum range is 45 degrees. When throwing a football, there is some air resistance this means that 45 degree is not necessarily the angle for the greatest range. Well, can't I just do the same thing as before? It turns out that it is a significantly different problem when air resistance is added. Without air resistance, the acceleration was constant. Not so now, my friend.
The problem is that air…