Mice ascend Everest to combat doping in sport

jerry submitted, created time 5 months 3 weeks (www.newscientist.com)

Researchers are looking for biochemical markers of the body's response to high altitude, as they could provide a test for gene doping by athletes...

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Amputee runner back in the game, but are the data sound?

Darkfrog submitted, created time 6 months 18 hours (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

The fastest man on no legs has been un-disqualified from the Olympics. Oscar Pistorius, who runs on two prosthetic feet called Cheetahs, had been barred from inclusion in the Olympics because a team of scientists hired by the International Association of Athletics Federations ruled that his prostheses gave him an unfair advantage. A new study, performed at Mr. Pistorius's request, shows otherwise.

This article, unlike some of the more human-interest ones I've read, really delves into the studies themselves, how they were performed and what may have been wrong with them

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Drug boosts stamina in mice

"Fastest man on no legs" has unfair advantage at the Olympics?

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 year 6 months (www.nytimes.com)

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Oscar Pistorius, who had both legs amputated when he was a baby for medical reasons, can now run the one hundred meter dash in under eleven seconds. He wants to cut that time down even further so that he can run for his native South Africa in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The question, though, is whether his light prosthetic legs give him an unfair advantage over the rest of us stringy meatballs. I.A.A.F

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Penalty kicks are all in the mind

Hunter9 submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (www.nature.com)

On a summer evening last year, more than a billion pairs of eyes were fixed on footballer David Tr¨|z¨|guetas he stepped up to take his penalty for France in the shootout against Italy to decide the world championship. A supremely talented goal-scorer, he inexplicably crashed his kick against the crossbar. France lost.

Fast-forward sixmonths, and psychologists say they have explained why: the pressure got to him

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