Olympic Science

Are you ready for the Olympics? With the opening ceremonies scheduled for Friday and the first competitions beginning today (women’s soccer!), the games have generated a lot of buzz and we thought we’d round-up some of the science-related stories for you.

The National Science Foundation (NSF), in partnership with NBC, has produced several engaging videos on the engineering behind the summer Olympic games. From the fluid dynamics of a swimmer to mechanics of a weight lifter to the design of a swimming pool or engineering of a safety helmet, these videos are a great way look at the games in a whole new light.

Nature provides a Science at the Olympics feature that includes more information about applying fluid dynamics to swimming techniques. They also have an in-depth article on athletic enhancements-- doping and a bit deeper.

The authors argue that future Olympic games could allow handicaps and gene therapy for people who naturally lack genes linked to athleticism, pointing out that there is already growing evidence that world-class athletes carry a minimum set of particular ‘performance-enhancing’ genes. What type of super-athlete could science build if doping and other performance enhancements were permitted?

Science also covered doping and engineering in a Live Chat last week. (A recording is available here.)

The New York Times’ Well blog offers running tips to athletes from wild cheetahs—all you need is hunger, light-weight shoes and strong, powerful thighs:

The speed with which a creature brings its leg back around into position appears to be one of the main determinants of speed… The faster you reposition the leg, the faster you’ll move… But swift leg turnover requires power.

NPR’s Summer Science offers tips to athletes trying to stay cool while competing, though I’m not sure how practical nudity is, considering the global reach of the games.

Finally, a little Olympic effort can go a long way. A study published last week in Geophysical Research Letters shows that as Beijing imposed restrictions on motor vehicles during the 2008 Olympic games, it had the side benefit of dramatically cutting emissions of carbon dioxide by 24,000 to 96,000 metric tons (about 26,500 to 106,000 U.S. tons) during the event.

“The Beijing Olympics allowed us to actually measure what happens when people drive much less, and it turns out that it makes quite a substantial difference to our climate,” says lead author Helen Worden of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “People may think their choice of how to commute to work doesn’t make a difference, whether driving their cars or riding their bikes. But on a large scale, it really does.”

London's Olympic Park image: EG Focus/Wikipedia