Pump it Up
From Discovery New: Fist-pumping celebrations by Olympians linked to primates
Fist pumps, hands in the air and jumping up and down, seen at every event at the Olympics, turn out to be the same across all cultures and likely have their roots in non-human primate displays.
When Olympic athletes such as Michael Phelps, Gabby Douglas and Usain Bolt celebrate their wins, they are displaying a declaration of success that could date back to the earliest human societies and beyond, according to a new study that has been accepted for publication in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.
Stellar View of the Games
From Space.com: Astronauts watch Olympics from space
The six astronauts living aboard the International Space Station are making time in their busy schedules to watch the 2012 Summer Olympics from space.
World is Watching
From AP/The San Francisco Chronicle: The Olympics: World’s Fairs of the 21st century?
It rose in England’s capital with the promise of showcasing humanity’s best: supreme accomplishments, fresh technologies, people from far-flung lands and their cultural traditions. It was both trumpeted as a global achievement and dismissed as overly commercialized “trumpery.”
It was not the Olympics.
Just a few miles up the road from the teeming venues of today’s Summer Games, Victorian London famously convened a gathering called “The Great Exhibition.” It was 1851’s version of a global event, and it was designed to tell mankind’s story — albeit from the vantage point of a potent colonial power.
Fast Five
From Discovery News: Five Cool Olympic Technologies
Win Some, Lose Some
From BBC News: Olympic technology winners and losers
Did tweeting spectators disrupt race data?