Olympics
milhayser | August 25, 2016Even as Michael Phelps piled a 23rd gold medal onto his stack, he also drew attention at the Rio Olympics for circular bruises on his shoulder resulting from a pseudoscientific medical treatment called cupping. Several ancient cultures practiced variants of cupping in order to reduce pain or heal injury. On Respectful Insolence, Orac writes "even if it does date back 5,000 years, arguably so does bloodletting." He continues "there is no compelling evidence that cupping is effective for any condition. Certainly, there is no credible evidence that it helps athletic performance." The benefit…
oracknows | August 9, 2016As I mentioned yesterday, there are news events involving medicine (more specifically pseudoscience in medicine) that are so ubiquitous and irritating that they’re enough to bring me briefly out of my vacation to bang out a quick post. So it was when I wrote my post yesterday about Michael Phelps’ enthusiasm for cupping, a practice attributed to traditional Chinese medicine that is actually an ancient practice that seems to have been independently thought up in multiple cultures, such as the ancient Egyptians. Basically, cupping therapy is a near-universal practice dating back at least 3,500…
gregladen | August 2, 2016This is one of those "what I had for lunch web log entries." Old fashioned style, and I'm not talking about the drink. Probably.
You'll notice that I've not blogged for half a month. For the last three months, Amanda, Huxley, and I have been engaged in a very time consuming operation. We fixed up our old house (it needed nothing more than cosmetic fixing, but we did ALL of that), then searched for a new house, bought one, and then moved into it. We then immediately ran into some delays and difficulties in getting settled, and are no where near normal, but we are getting there fast and in…
cmonforton | February 11, 2014Alpine skiiers Heidi Kloser, 21, (US); Rok Perko, 28, (Slovenia); Brice Roger, 23, (France); and Maggie Voisin, 15, (US), are some of the athletes whose dreams of an Olympic medal have come to an end. All suffered serious injuries during training or qualifying runs, which will prevent them from competing for medals. Kloser, Perko, Roger, and Voisin have something else in common. Their injuries are now part of the 2014 Olympic’s official injury and illness surveillance system.
The International Olympic Committee initially established the system for the 2004 summer games in Athens. It was…
gregladen | February 7, 2014It should have been a concern the day after Sochi won its bid for the Winter Olympic Games several years ago.
It is reported that authorities or private contractors are taking the street dogs off the streets in Sochi, in preparation for the Olympics, which start tonight. A friend of mine was living in Athens for the weeks before the Summer Olympics there, and she told me that authorities did the same, and that included summary executions, of the dogs, where they were found.
This has sparked outrage, of course.
I do have to wonder why the decision is made to remove these dogs, and in…
dr. dolittle | August 11, 2012
In honor of the Olympic games, Scientific American has put together a slide show of the fastest animals in the world, like the peregrine falcon shown in the picture above that has been recorded diving at speeds of 115 mph! The slide show is definitely a must-see! To check out the show, click here.
jtoney | August 3, 2012
Every four years, I am inspired by the Olympic portrayal of the best of human strength and spirit that brings together nations unlike any other event. Thanks to Canadian sprinter Jenna Martin, I found this astounding example of an Olympic Fall. It is a race emblematic of the value of falls, and failures in our life. It is a must see!
rallain | February 22, 2010My last Olympics post may have been a little complicated. I am going to try to make this one a little easier. In this post, I want to look at the landing portion of a ski jump. This could apply to THE ski jump, but there are some things in that even that make it a little more complicated (but I might come back to that in another post). For this case, I will consider the freestyle event - aerials. I didn't search too long, but here is a nice short video.
First, a quick estimation of how high they are "falling" from on the way down. In that video, the jumper takes about 1.5 seconds to get…
gregladen | February 21, 2010Many people give credit to Ronald Reagan, when he climbed up on the Berlin Wall and personally kicked it down brick by brick while under fire from the East German Stasi.
Many people give credit to Team USA, the Hockey Team that beat the USSR team at the Lake Placid Olympics.
Still others credit various movies , books, or political revelations.
But I tend to agree with what my father always said about this.
In 1987, teenager Mathias Rust flew a tiny, unarmed rented Cessna from Helsinki to Moscow, landing very near to Red Square. The soviets never detected the aircraft. This demonstrated…
razib | February 21, 2010There's apparently a game in this sport at the Olympics tonight. Canada is the favorite. Which is awesome, because if the USA loses, no one in the USA will care. But if the USA wins, we'll get to laugh at the Canadians. Don't lie, you know Canada is the country that keeps on giving in terms of humor.
Update: Yeah, you guys are funny. LOL.
rallain | February 17, 2010It is winter Olympics time and time for physics. The event that I always gets me thinking about physics is short track speed skating. It is quite interesting to see these skaters turn and lean at such high angles. All it needs is a little sprinkling of physics for flavor.
Check out this image of Apolo (apparently, it is not Apollo).
How about I start with a force diagram?
I know what you are thinking...Fcent....what force is that? Yes, I am going to use the centrifugal force in this case - but remember that sometimes fake forces are awesome. In short, if I want to pretend like Apolo…
grrlscientist | December 28, 2009tags: Bikini Curling, Drinkers with a Curling Problem, curling, sports, parody, satire, funny, humor, fucking hilarious, streaming video
In a new made-for-mobile series, "Drinkers with a Curling Problem," award-winning Canadian director David Ostry explores deviant variations of the favorite winter sport -- curling.
You might recall my own fondness for the sport of curling.