OCTOPUS bracket: 1st round results are in!

Well, you know it's big when the American Idol gang weigh in with an opening musical number (live at the HIV vs Plasmodium court, and telecast to the others). Not only that, but the crazy reworking of Kelly Clarkson's "Since you've been gone" using the words from Koch's Postulates, was a huge hit. In any event, here are the results below.

HIV: 81
Plasmodium: 67
Well, the song must of really inspired the players in the pathogen centric game. HIV and Plasmodium really battled hard. But you know, at the end of the day, there really wasn't any contest. Plasmodium had a lot of heart, but ultimately, the crowd was cheering all the way for HIV. Malaria just can't compete in this day and age of economic realities. That HIV machine just has a much bigger bankroll to attract the talent, manage the PR (Bono was in the stands, by the way), and we think the HIV denialists present in the crowd with their placards of "IT'S O.K. TO INFECT ME, DUESBERG!!" and "HI-FIVE TO HI-V!" sent the team into anger inspired overdrive. H.I.V. advances.

Genomics: 84
Proteomics: 80
Even with the embarrasment of Craig Venter streaking nude just before the game started, this one was a bit of a sleeper to watch. These two teams are well known and friendly to each other (rumour has it has that maybe they'll combine to form a Systems Biology team next year) and the lack of tension was readily apparent. As well, the amount of equipment each team brought in was unbelievable, and many of the players were more to do with technical support, which hardly makes for thrilling court dynamics. Overall, these things only justify the sentiment that perhaps "omic"s may have lost its cool, but hopefully Team Genomics will revitalize and try and change that sentiment from this point on.

Neuroscience: 91
Psychology: 93
Call this the comeback game folks! At the first half, Neuroscience looked like it had a lock, with exciting moves that generated massive points (hopefully YouTube will present some video footage later). Psychology almost played like they weren't even there - many players stayed on the sidelines, taking notes and conversing with each other. In fact, two of the squad simply did their reading in the locker room. In fact, by halftime, Neuroscience was up 85 to 0, and quite a few folks in the stands simply left the building in disgust. But people, the second half was nothing short of miraculous! Psychology came steaming back to win the game, and held Neuroscience to only a further 6 points. Truly amazing game - I think there's no question that this team is one to watch! Can't wait for the next game.

Totipotent: 79
Unipotent: 85
This was a really fast paced game and at the end of day, turned out to be what many have called a major upset. Team totipotent seemed to have it all, be it all actually. But ultimately, these icons of the stem cell world didn't have what it takes to beat Team Unipotent. And why was this? Well, there's lots of speculation, but one possiblity was just the smart strategy employed by the Unipotent coach. Here, she stacked the team with fast skeletal muscle twitcher types, and a few key retinal/optic nerve players. It just made sense, and in the end it worked like a charm. The other possibility is more controversial. Just before the game, Team Jesus showed up to lend their support (it's well known that they are not too fond of the totipotent camp, something about messing ith resurrection and stuff), and witnesses are pretty sure that one of the members of Team Jesus perform a miracle of some sort ("There was gesturing!"). Who knows what went down but the results stand. Unipotent makes it to the second round.

Invertebrates: 76
Vertebrates: 59
Talk about a loud crowd. Invertebrate fans really showed up in full force here. And what we think happened here, was that the diversity in talent was just too deep in the Invertebrates' favour (and it didn't hurt that the Giant Squid could score without having to move up court - it just stretched its massive tentacle across the length of the court and into the basket). The Vertebrates just didn't stand a chance, and this, we note, is when the invertebrates didn't even bring out their star parasite players.

Surgery: 76
Internal Medicine: 104
This was a total shock. All stats actually pointed to this being a closely contested match-up. But to be honest, Surgery did look a little overtired, whereas (and what may be the main story here), Internal Medicine was surprisingly full-on aggressive. In any event, even though there were some instances of spark amongst the Surgery team (and we might add, that the use of scalpels in the court did freak out a few of the younger Internal Medicine players), it wasn't even close to think of owning the game.

Phylogenetics: 63
Linnaean Taxonomy: 61
This match-up was an exercise in contrast. On the one hand, high computational power was brought into the arena, and the other, a more muted but arguably steady approach that relied mostly on sketching skills. Many think that in this case, the small extra lift that Team Phylogenetics got in hearing that Genomics floored Proteomics in an earlier game really made the difference. Plus, the assortment of pipettemens really seem to spook the Linnaeans.

Photosynthesis: 137
Respiration: 56
Over at the Photosynthesis vs Respiration game, it looked like ecologists and plant lovers were out in full force supporting Team Photosynthesis, truly an underdog of epic proportions in this tournament. And in the stands, there was an interesting mix of biochemists, botanists, as well as an assortment of environmental adocate types (many of which, as always, were playing hacky sack badly). Still, Respiration had their stalwart supporters, although many of which appeared to be high school teachers and sports medicine practitioners. Interesting side story though, is the heated debate over the locale of this game - that is, it had to be moved last minute to one of the few open aired arenas (the original stadium was inadvertently filled up by equipment from the neighbouring Genomics vs Proteomics match-up). In any event, this change was key, as it turned the game into a blow out. Put simply, the sun was shining, and Photosynthesis walked all over Respiration. Then, it got ugly and a full out brawl between the teams culminated and ended with some players thrown out. We're sure that there will be more on this later as it appears that both Photosyntheis and Respiration have launched formal complaints against each other, and Respiration has also filed an additional complaint against the sun itself.

So there you have it. Next round match-ups are as follows:

Invertebrates vs Internal Medicine
Genomics vs Photosynthesis
Phylogenetics vs Unipotent
Psychology vs HIV

Game on.