Goal Scoring and Birth Control

The search continues, to find timely meaning in soccer (football) and childbirth: “More Goals, Fewer Babies? On National Teams’ Performance and Birth Rates,” Luca Fumarco and Francesco Principe, IZA DP No. 14448, June 2021 The authors, at Tulane University, IZA, the Tinbergen Institute, and ECASE, explain: “Does national team performance boost birth rates? We compiled […]

A Cloud Computing Based Big-Bang Big-Crunch Fuzzy Logic Multi Classifier System for Soccer Video Scenes Classification

The title says it all, more or less, in this new study: “A Cloud Computing Based Big-Bang Big-Crunch Fuzzy Logic Multi Classifier System for Soccer Video Scenes Classification,” Song Wei, Hani Hagras, and Daniyal Alghazzawi [pictured here], Memetic Computing, August 5, 2016. The authors, at the University of Essex, UK, and King Abdulaziz University, Saudi […]

Belgian sporting earthquake measurements project

Scientists in Belgium are methodically measuring the effects of soccer games on the oscillation of the earth. Lieven Scheire alerted us, saying “our seismic institute is measuring small earthquakes every time our national soccer team scores at the european championships. The image you (probably) see below documents seismic activity from a recent match between Hungary and Belgium. (Belgium won […]

The Effect of Swear Words on Referees

Do swear words have predictable effects on football referees? A team of Austrian scientists tackles that question in a study called May I Curse a Referee? Swear Words and Consequences. Stefan Stieger, of the University of Austria, together with Andrea Praschinger and Christine Pomikal, who describe themselves as “independent scientists”, published their report in the Journal of Sports […]