Everything we have published
Filter by what a story is — an investigation, an analysis, or a brief — and by what it is about.
49 stories
Beyond raw strength, the truly exceptional UFC fighter optimizes physiology, psychology, and tactical acumen to achieve dominance inside the octagon.
A game played by people not spreadsheets
Baseball built a statistic to measure individual value. Somewhere along the way we started asking it to explain winning, greatness and championships. Those may not be the same thing.
Every great sports broadcast borrows from professional wrestling. Most won't admit it.
When athletes get tired, they don't get slower first — they get simpler. The research explains why.
The Tehran UFO Incident refers to a series of reported radar and visual contacts with an unidentified aerial object (UAO) over Tehran, Iran, during the early morning hours of September 19, 1976. The event involved multiple Iranian Imperial Air Force (IIAF) F-4 Phantom II jet inte
Is Chicago watching the beginning of the greatest center-field career baseball has ever seen?
Capuchins, chimpanzees and macaques are using tools, passing down traditions and leaving archaeological records behind. What does that tell us about the origins of human intelligence?
The Bears’ Indiana threat isn’t just a stadium story. It exposes a bigger problem in professional sports: franchise values are exploding, taxpayers are pushing back on subsidies, and private equity may become the inevitable answer.
Your Apple Watch says you got 1 hour 47 minutes of REM sleep last night. Here's what it actually measured, and why that's a very different thing.
A materials-science look at why granite, marble, quartzite, limestone and engineered quartz fail in such different ways — and why almost everyone calls all of it 'staining' regardless of what actually happened.
Is a value-menu burger engineered to hijack your brain, or just really well-designed food? We looked at the actual sensory science behind salt, sugar, fat, crunch and aroma — and where the 'food addiction' claim starts to wobble.
Why do bridges, elevators, and skyscrapers get built to withstand far more than they'll ever face — and what happens on the rare occasions someone strips that margin away?
Ultra-processed food is linked to obesity and chronic disease, but researchers still can't agree whether it's the processing, the calories, the sugar and sodium, or simply that UPFs replace whole foods.
Why do engineers deliberately design bridges and skyscrapers to sway, flex, and creak — and when does that movement cross the line from safe to catastrophic?
Real hardware is getting better at fixing its own errors, but the gap between a lab milestone and a machine that outperforms your laptop at anything useful remains wide and contested.
Distant galaxies are receding from us faster than light, and it's not a loophole — it's a reminder that the speed limit governs motion through space, not the stretching of space itself.
Between protein bars, powders, and 'high-protein' everything, the marketing has outrun the science. Here's what the actual research says about how much protein a normal adult needs—and where more stops helping.
Americans treat a printed yogurt date like Cinderella's carriage at midnight. The actual rules behind Best By, Sell By, and Use By are looser, more confusing, and more wasteful than almost anyone realizes.
Sports drink marketing treats electrolytes as universally essential. The physiology says something narrower: they matter a lot, but mostly for people losing a lot of sodium, for a while, in specific conditions.
Everyone quotes eight hours like it's carved on a tablet. We looked at what the sleep research actually supports — and what it doesn't.
The 8x8 water rule sounds like settled science. Tracing it back reveals a dropped sentence, a debunking review nobody read, and a much messier reality about how the body actually manages water.
Concrete can hold up a skyscraper but can't hold itself together against a stretch — the question is why the same material can be a champion in compression and a pushover in tension.
The White Sox can slug their way off the ropes. Now baseball’s most surprising Chicago revival has to learn how to stop taking punches.
Exploring the complex interplay between our biology, environment, and technological advancements that defines the outermost boundaries of athletic achievement and human capability.
Elite athletes don't just see well; they process visual information differently, unlocking performance advantages that challenge conventional ideas about innate talent.
Unpack the scientific principles and practical application of long-term athletic development, guiding young athletes from foundational skills to sustained elite performance.
Unpacking the science behind effective coaching, revealing how evidence-based strategies fundamentally reshape athlete development and elevate performance beyond intuition.
Beyond raw speed, the ability to rapidly and accurately respond to unpredictable stimuli often defines peak athletic performance across diverse disciplines, from the octagon to the gridiron.
Unraveling the intricate dance between physiological breakdown and mental willpower, we explore how the brain orchestrates performance limits and strategies to push through them.
Unpacking the science behind how top performers, through methods like constraints-led learning and ecological dynamics, forge superior skills and adapt to dynamic sporting environments.
Understanding advanced analytical tools like EPA, xG, and WAR is critical for discerning what truly drives on-field success and separates meaningful data from statistical noise.
Beyond the gym and the field, the science of recovery reveals how strategic restoration of physiological and cognitive function dictates peak athletic performance and injury resilience.
Unpack the intricate biological mechanisms driving athletic performance, from cellular energy production to long-term systemic adaptations under stress.
Unraveling the science behind skill acquisition, we explore why mere repetition often falls short and how strategic practice structures unlock superior athletic performance and lasting mastery.
Unpack the evidence-based mental strategies champions deploy to sharpen focus, master pressure, and cultivate an unwavering resilience in high-stakes competition.
Beyond choreographed maneuvers, professional wrestling leverages acute biomechanics, psychological storytelling, and rigorous athletic conditioning to forge a captivating hybrid of sport and spectacle.
Unpacking the multifaceted, data-driven strategies and often unheralded innovations that forge championship-caliber college football teams in the modern era.
The United Center is loud on paper. On tape, it sounds like a library. Here is why — and what it costs the Bulls.
Travel miles, rest days, and prime-time slots aren't distributed evenly. The Bears keep drawing the short straw.
Restructures, void years, and dead cap. The Bears bought time. Here is how much, and what it costs later.
A rep-by-rep audit of the interior line — pass sets, run fits, and the two positions still leaking pressure.
Pre-snap motion is the cheapest yardage in football. The math, the tape, and the coverages that break.
From the '85 Bears to the 2010 Blackhawks — what the great Chicago defenses actually shared.
Toughness is a Chicago cliche. The origin story is more specific — and more interesting — than the cliche.
Computer vision now grades every rep of every game. Here is what it sees well — and what it still misses.
RFID chips generate 200 data points per second per player. The coaches who use it best are winning the margins.
Late-game execution isn't clutch — it's rehearsal, workload, and decision architecture.
Whatever you believe about UFOs, the standard of evidence should be the same as it is anywhere else.
