The Friday Five

Highlighting some of the coolest science news we’ve seen lately.

1. Which will be the best Super Bowl commercial? Science may have the answer!

2. Well, excuse me! It happens to all of us. The science behind brain farts.

3. Twitches, hiccups, yawns, oh my!  The science behind different involuntary behaviors.

4. Judge me by my size do you? Here’s why small black holes are more dangerous than big ones.

5. OK, I no longer want to be a pirate. Terrifying medical instruments found on Blackbeard’s sunken ship.

Science quote of the week:

“Two things are infinite:  the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.” –Albert Einstein

Contributed by:  Bill Sullivan

Follow Bill on Twitter: @wjsullivan

I’ll Wager That You Bet On Football, Or Maybe Football

Opera diva Renee Fleming (left) sang the national anthem

at the 2014 Super Bowl. Millions of dollars were

wagered on just how long it would take her to get through

the Star Spangled Banner. Pop star Kelly Clarkson (top) took

only 1:34, so the smart bettors went with a longer time for

an opera singer. The over/under was 2:25, but she came in

a solid 35 seconds under that line. Alicia Keys (bottom), on

the other hand, took almost three minutes!

It’s fall again. The NFL season just began and across the pond the English Premier League soccer season has a few games under its belt. You know what that means – lots and lots of gambling.

Between American football and football proper, literally trillions of dollars are wagered each year. And that just counts the games, not the fantasy leagues. For all the readers in the US - yes there are indeed fantasy leagues for the English Premier League.

Each sport is the top betting sport in its respective country, unless you count the massive gamble that NBC took signing a contract to show the EPL in the United States. You can bet on just about anything that concerns the games; who'll get hurt, who'll score first, even the coin toss. In 2014, betting on the Super Bowl surpassed 100 million dollars, and only 42% of that was bet on who would actually win the game!

About 4% of those people who bet on at least a semi-regular basis will go on to develop a gambling addiction, or a “pathologic gambling” problem. There have been lots of study in recent years as to why people gamble, and why only some people develop an addiction. As with most things, it comes down to which is the chicken and which is the egg.

A recent study in Thai students showed that 20% of teenagers gambled, mostly on cards, but only slightly less popular was football (soccer). Ten percent of those who gambled were considered to be addicted. Since only 4% of adults become addicted, does this mean that children are more susceptible? Maybe, but it could be other things as well.

The authors found a strong negative correlation between education and gambling. As GPA went down or the level of education stayed low, the chance of pathologic gambling went up. But which is the cart and which is the horse? Do people with poor grades or education have more chance to become problem gamblers, or does problem gambling lead to poor grades?

More betting on World Cup and other football games has led

to an increase in Chinese, Russian, and North Vietnamese

hacking syndicates that prey on gamblers. Match fixing is also

becoming a big problem as more criminal enterprises try to

make a killing on the beautiful game.

The take home lesson, beyond that Thai kids apparently have too much spending money, is that correlation does not imply causation. Just because two things occur together, it doesn’t mean that the first causes the second or that the second causes the first. One or the other might be causative, but it doesn’t follow that one must cause the other.

So why do they gamble? Is it thrill seeking, for potential monetary gain, for social reasons? There may be as many reasons for gambling as there are gamblers, but some common issues crop up in pathologic gamblers.

Two terms used in the study of gambling are “illusion of control” and “near miss.” These seem to be especially important in football and football. Illusion of control is the feeling that knowing more about the game and being up on the latest data and statistics make a tangible difference in the outcomes of wagers. It ain’t so.

A couple of recent studies give us evidence to the futility of extensive studying. A 2012 study compared the result of choosing 10 soccer games. Professional football gamblers were compared to people who knew nothing about the game and to amateurs who followed the game casually. They all succeeded at comparable rates – knowing more about the game made no difference whatsoever.

This result was supported by a 2013 study that picked the round of 16 games in the European Champions League. Again, people who were ignorant of the game bet just as successfully as the pros. Nevertheless, pathologic gamblers do seem to believe that they have more control over the outcome of wagers, and this is one of the justifications they use to continue. The more they continue to study and bet, the more likely they will develop a problem.

A recent series of experiments shows that it is more complicated than this, at least for football (or football). Gamblers of many ages and betting frequency range were queried as to whether they believed in their luck or their skill for gambling. For football, frequency of betting related more to a belief in luck than their image of themselves as “in the know.” The results were different for casino games, where a sense of skill led to more frequent betting. So football betting isn't always about thinking you have an information edge.

These are MRI scans of the brain while betting on a slot

machine. The left image is a scan of the reward center activity

in a win, but they have subtracted the activity that occurs with

a loss. On the right, the signal during a win was subtracted

from the signal in a near miss situation. There is actually more

activity in a near miss than in an actual win! No wonder

people get hooked on betting.

The “near miss” is more interesting. Having your team lose by one point, or on a fluke play (something like the Fail Mary in the Seahawks/Packers game of 2012) is excruciating – but it's also more exciting, especially for pathologic gamblers. The feeling of excitement and payoff is bigger in these games than even in games that they might win.

In the above study, rats who were trained to press a lever for food after a random press light three lights, pressed the food bar just as often when only two lights were lit – even though pressing it for a non-win (three lights was a win) induced a time penalty during which they couldn’t play again. They knew it would bring a penalty, but the near miss still had some irresistable appeal for the brain’s reward center.

It’s a dopamine thing. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter in the brain that has a lot to do with reward – things that give our brains pleasure. About ten years ago, scientists noticed that people that were started on medicine for Parkinson’s disease (a disease in which motor coordination is impaired due to the loss of dopamine producing neurons in the substantia nigra of the brain) developed gambling addictions at much higher rates than the general population.

Dopamine works in different ways for different parts of the brain. When treating the basal ganglia (BG) that controls muscle movements with dopamine (the dopamine in the BG is low in Parkinson's), you are also increasing the dopamine levels in other parts of the brain. It isn't the treatment of the tremor that causes people to gamble, it's the inadvertent actions of the dopamine on some other part of the brain that leads to gambling problems.

For example, the “near miss” releases just as much dopamine in the reward centers of the brain as does a win and correlates highly with development of gambling addiction. Does too little dopamine mean that they have to gamble more than other people in order to get the same effect, and this is exacerbated by dopamine containing medicines? Maybe. Pathologic gamblers do seem to release more dopamine in the mesolimbic area of the brain (motivation control) when gambling than do healthy control subjects.

This cartoon illustrates just how difficult it is to prove a causal

relationship between dopamine and pathologic gambling. The

different areas of the brain use different combinations of

dopamine receptors, and these can change with disease or

trauma. Each are will react differently to too much or too little

dopamine, or to changes in other neurotransmitters that affect

dopamine activity or release. But scientists are good at isolating

variables, I bet we get it sooner rather than later.

However, a 2013 study showed that the motivational area dopamine areas had more dopamine when the reward (winning the bet) was uncertain as opposed to after it was won. This leads to the idea that there is more of a thrill in uncertainty and is itself the reward. When dopamine drugs enter the brain indiscriminately, these feelings are exacerbated, and more gambling is needed to keep the reward (pleasurable feeling) going.

Unfortunately, it's much more complicated than this. There are different types of receptors for dopamine on the different types of neurons. Too much or too little dopamine can over time change the number and types of dopamine receptors found on the neurons, so dopamine activity in a healthy brain isn’t exactly the same as dopamine activity on a previously dopamine starved brain. This is exemplified by a case report in 2013 of a patient who quickly developed a strong and uncontrolled gambling problem after beginning drugs to lower the dopamine levels in his brain.

So once again, we see that just correlating dopamine levels with gambling on football (or anything else) isn’t enough to say that it causes the gambling addiction. We know dopamine is playing a role, but is it too little or too much that leads to gambling addiction? Your bet is as good as mine.

contributed by
Mark E. Lasbury, MS, MSEd, PhD
As Many Exceptions As Rules




Anselme P, & Robinson MJ (2013). What motivates gambling behavior? Insight into dopamine's role. Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience, 7 PMID: 24348355

Huberfeld R, Gersner R, Rosenberg O, Kotler M, & Dannon PN (2013). Football gambling three arm-controlled study: gamblers, amateurs and laypersons. Psychopathology, 46 (1), 28-33 PMID: 22890307

Khazaal Y, Chatton A, Billieux J, Bizzini L, Monney G, Fresard E, Thorens G, Bondolfi G, El-Guebaly N, Zullino D, & Khan R (2012). Effects of expertise on football betting. Substance abuse treatment, prevention, and policy, 7 PMID: 22578101

Zhou K, Tang H, Sun Y, Huang GH, Rao LL, Liang ZY, & Li S (2012). Belief in luck or in skill: which locks people into gambling? Journal of gambling studies / co-sponsored by the National Council on Problem Gambling and Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming, 28 (3), 379-91 PMID: 21894576

Grötsch P, Lange C, Wiesbeck GA, & Lang U (2013). Pathological Gambling Induced by Dopamine Antagonists: A Case Report. Journal of gambling studies / co-sponsored by the National Council on Problem Gambling and Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming PMID: 24356928

The Pressure of the World Cup Penalty Kick

Tim Howard was brilliant in goal for the United States at the 2014 World Cup. Flying all over the place, catching, punching, kicking – he looked like he was protecting his family home from post-apocalyptic cannibals. It was very impressive, but the US went out against Belgium 2-1 in extra time, despite Howard’s 17 saves, the most in a single World Cup game in 50 years.

Tim Howard had a great game for the US, heck, a great 
tournament. So great in fact, that Wikipedia temporarily 
changed the name of the US Secretary of Defense to 
Tim Howard. The true SOD, Chuck Hagel, called to 
congratulate Howard. Hagel stated that with some

training, Howard could be the real secretary of 
defense. One, he called after a loss – reminds too many 
people of Vietnam, and two, what few things does 
Howard lack to be SOD?

In the whole of Team USA’s tournament, Howard didn’t face one penalty kick. This was good for him, since it’s so hard for a goalie to look invincible against a lone player kicking a small ball into a 24 foot (7.3 m) wide goal from only 12 yards (10.9 m) away.

In World Cup competition, most penalty kicks are successful, to the tune of about 86%. But penalty kicks come in two flavors, and that percentage only reflects the scoring rate for penalty kicks (PK) that occur during the game. There are also PKs that come when the two teams are still tied after extra time (we Americans call it overtime, but of course we call it soccer too).

About 70% of penalty kicks find the back of the net in that situation. Why is there a difference? It’s the same distance, it’s still striker against goalie. The ball is still roughly round with those funny geometric shapes stitched into it. Why does the scoring rate go down so significantly?

Billy Joel told us why many years ago – Pressure! The kicker is expected to make the shot – he has such a big advantage. Joe Bag–O-Donuts on his couch is screaming that he could make that shot, and he gets out of breath just opening the chip bag! Let’s investigate how big an advantage the striker actually has, and then we can figure out why it shrinks when it’s time to line up for PKs.

Billy Joe’s song has some poignant lines that could apply

to penalty kicks. “So far so good but you will come to a

place where the only thing you feel are loaded guns in

your face and you'll have to deal with pressure.” Or how

about, “Don't ask for help you're all alone. Pressure.

You'll have to answer to your own pressure.”

A good college or professional football player will kick the ball so it reaches a speed of 80 mph (128 kph, or 117 feet per second/35.7 meters per second). At a distance of 12 yards, this means the whole event is over in roughly 0.3 seconds. It takes a goalie about 0.6 seconds to move so that one hand or foot can get to either edge of the goal! You don’t have to be a math magician to see that if the striker can kick the ball on target, it’s going to go in.

That’s why most PKs are aimed at the edges of the goal, either up top, in the middle, or on the ground. Most PKs that are missed are aimed up high, so maybe the goalie has a slight advantage there, but still, there’s 192 square feet (17.9 square meters) of space that must be defended in the blink of an eye. Yes, it takes 0.3-0.35 seconds to blink – let’s hope the goalie’s eyes don’t have bad timing.

FIFA changed the rule in 1997 so that the goalie can move before the ball is struck, but it doesn’t help that much. He still isn’t allowed to move forward. This would help him narrow the angles and reduce the square footage he has to defend. And if he does move before the ball is kicked, he’s really just guessing. A study of previous World Cups says that goalies only guess correctly about 41% of the time, and guessing right still doesn’t matter if he doesn’t have enough time to get a hand on the ball.

Some goalies say that they can watch the striker to get a

sense of where he is going to kick the ball. They contend

that the kick usually goes the same direction that the plant

foot is pointed. Of course, strikers know this. So what do

you think they do? And of course, they can hesitate in their

run up to see which way the goalie is leaning.

Research at Brunel University in London suggests that World Class goalkeepers can anticipate a striker direction about 80 milliseconds (0.08 s) before he kicks it. Is this enough of an advantage to stop a well placed shot? Maybe, but probably not.

But goalies do have some recourse. A study by Noel and Vander Kamp (2012) suggests that focus is the key. By making large movements or sudden moves, a goalie might just be able to distract the striker and send the shot errantly wide or high. The study for International Journal of Sports Psychology showed that strikers that spent slightly more time looking at the goalkeeper as opposed to the ball or target area were stopped more often.

Their research suggested that taking a goalkeeper-independent strategy (ignore him/her completely) was better for making goal kicks. So the more a goalie can make you look at him, the better. Maybe that’s why they wear bright colors.

Greg Woods’ PhD thesis for the University of Exeter also points to a focus issue. He used 18 college football players fitted with eye tracking software. If the striker looked at the goalie, the penalty kick was stopped 40.6% of the time, while if he ignored the goalie, the shot was only stopped 20% of the time.

Eye tracking is important in sport science, but also in business

marketing. People trying to sell you things you don’t need want

to draw your eye to the things they want, so they need to know

where you look and when during commercials. The camera that

faces forward  shows what you are looking at, and the camera

facing your eye tracks your pupil. The two can be coordinated

so they can see what portion of your field of vision your pupils

are focused on. They are accurate to about 0.1 in (2.5 mm) at 30

inches away from the screen.

But is this enough to explain the big decrease in PK success at the end of games? The added pressure of having no time to make up for mistakes increases the anxiety level of the strikers and helps the goalie even out some of their disadvantage.

The statistics bear out the pressure angle. The coin flip is important before PKs because 80% of the time, the team that kicks first, wins. Every time the first team is successful, the pressure ramps up on the second team, because now they’re playing from behind. Statistics also show that the first team that misses will lose about 81.2% of the time. The added pressure of being behind is too much to overcome.

The added pressure results in a breaking of rhythm that overcomes the muscle memory that should control a striker’s kick. It may also increase the time that a striker is unfocused, and may look at the goalie more. Woods’ study, published in the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology (2009) showed that as anxiety increased, the striker was more likely to spend time looking at the goalkeeper, and this tended to send PKs more centrally in the net and therefore easier to stop.

You can see by the look on his face, Andres Escobar knew

something bad just happened. His block ended up in his country’s

goal. He returned home to Colombia only to be shot a couple of

days later. ESPN made a documentary about the two Escobars,

Andres and Pablo, and suggested that Andres would not have

been killed if the drug lord, Pablo, had not died a few months

previous. Pablo was a soccer fan, and many of the national team

players were his friends.

The pressure of playing for your country in the World Cup may also be an added bonus; some countrymen just won’t let a guy forget a World Cup gaffe. Andres Escobar was shot dead in Colombia just days after returning home from the World Cup in 1994. His own goal (hit the ball into his team’s net) sent the Colombian team home after group play.

Another Colombian player was murdered in 2006 in a bar shooting. He had missed a penalty kick in the Copas Libertadores tournament a few years earlier, of course the motive for the shooting might have been something else. The moral of the story – ignore the goalie and don’t forget your bullet-proof vest.

Contributed by Mark E. Lasbury, MS, MSEd, PhD

Mark is writer and educator in the areas of science and history
As Many Exceptions As Rules




Wilson MR, Wood G, & Vine SJ (2009). Anxiety, attentional control, and performance impairment in penalty kicks. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 31 (6), 761-75 PMID: 20384011

BENJAMIN NOËL and JOHN VAN DER KAMP (2012). Gaze behaviour during the soccer penalty kick: An investigation of the effects of strategy and anxiety Int. J. Sport Psychol., 41, 1-20