What Happens To a Football Player's Neurons? 176
An anonymous reader writes "It seems like every week there's a new story about the consequences of all those concussions experienced by football players and other athletes — just a few days ago, the NY Times reported that some athletes diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease may actually have a neural disease brought on by head trauma. But missing in these stories is an explanation of what head trauma actually does to the brain cells. Now Carl Zimmer has filled in the gap with a column that takes a look at how neurons respond to stress, and explains how stretching a neuron's axon turns its internal structure into 'mush.'"
True geniuses? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yet there are people who argue that football is a game based on sophisticated strategies, that anyone able to play it proficiently must have an intelligence on the higher outliers of genius.
Now it seems that "mushy" neurons are good enough...
Re:Don't forget about their scrotums. (Score:4, Insightful)
So, you have to be really dumb to use steroids. The prosecution rests.
Re:American Football is not Football (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wa...? (Score:3, Insightful)
Pretty much everything, but to be able to rub the lotion on Giselle's back on the beach in Ipanema might be the simplest way to express it.
Re:The amount of replies to this story (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, it's how I became "cool." It didn't matter how well you played or how annoying or ugly you were, as long as you survived hell week and stuck with the team, you were in with the cool people(and, by extension, the juniors and seniors and the parties that they threw and all the pussy surrounding that whole scene). You were allowed to scream, cuss, punch lockers, high-five, whatever you had to do to shrug off the pain...as long as you took your hits and didn't cry like a bitch on the field.
Plus, a working knowledge of sports makes it much easier to bond with others and make new friends. And, of course, the health benefits. Now if only those damn San Diego Chargers would quit taking bribes and fucking up in the playoffs so I can see them win at least one super bowl before I die.
Re:True geniuses? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
Boxing is not a real sport (Score:3, Insightful)
The objective in boxing is to cause sufficient brain trauma to your opponent that he loses consciousness or can no longer stand up. That's not a sport, that's barbarism, and has no business in a civilized society. the short term, it's highly dangerous, and in the long term it can turn you into what's left of Muhammad Ali.
By contrast, wrestling is a real sport, in spite of the fact that professional boxing is for real and professional wrestling is as much fake showmanship as sport. (And yes, just because it's fake doesn't mean than any of those guys can't throw my ass out of the ring, and look good doing it.)
Re:American Football is not Football (Score:1, Insightful)
That's why that version of Football, as in where you kick around a white spherical ball with black pentagons, should only ever be referred to by its proper name: Soccer.
I agree. The rightful title of 'Football' should go to the sport where you carry an elliptical object with your hand and .. umm...
Nevermind.
Re:American Football is not Football (Score:1, Insightful)
No we're talking about Football... (Score:1, Insightful)
The term football for hundreds of years has been used to refer to many games that were "played on foot" as opposed to on horseback or some other means. "American Football" definitely gets a claim on that. Every bit as much as soccer (properly known as "Association Football").
Read, learn... (if you can)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football
Re:The amount of replies to this story (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny thing is, at least in places (not Texas) that don't take high school football too seriously, football is an excellent opportunity for a nerd to get into the "in" crowd.
In fact, it's how I became "cool." It didn't matter how well you played or how annoying or ugly you were, as long as you survived hell week and stuck with the team, you were in with the cool people(and, by extension, the juniors and seniors and the parties that they threw and all the pussy surrounding that whole scene).
No, actually, the funny thing is how in the USA (maybe also Canada?) you so ridiculously obsess about being popular, being with the "in" people. Is being yourself so scary, over there?
While I believe that there is some peer pressure to conform, everywhere, in the USA it seems it has become grotesque.