Michael Jordan guards Magic Johnson, back in the day, as the kids say.
When is the "hot hand" of pro basketball players actually "the not-so-hot hand"?
Stars Michael Jordan, Reggie Miller and Kobe Bryant have all had shooting streaks, but research reveals the so-called "hot hand" is a myth, derived from our tendency to see patterns even when there aren't any, says John Matson in Scientific American.
One study published in the journal Nature Communications looked at statistics for hundreds of NBA players and concluded they put too much stock on the outcome of their last 3-point shot. If they made one, they were much more likely to try another than if they missed.
Matson says "the Lakers' Bryant was a prime example in his MVP season of 2007-08." When he hit a 3-pointer, he shot again from long range nearly four times as often as following a missed 3.
But trying to ride a 3-point streak is often bad strategy, Matson says. "Players actually tend to shoot a lower percentage after making shots than after missing them -- once again sending the idea of the 'hot hand' up in smoke."
What's so special about silk underwear?
To many of us, they're a touch of luxury, but for the British, American and Australian troops in Afghanistan, they're an "essential piece of kit," says armor scientist Simon Holden of the United Kingdom's Defense Science and Technology Laboratory, as reported in New Scientist.
The first thing an injured soldier tends to ask is "Are my bits OK?" and of all the fabrics available for underpants, silk is a traditional favorite. It is lightweight, stretches easily and can absorb an impressive amount of energy, helping reduce the severity of injuries.
"Small pieces of shrapnel are unlikely to pierce the silk, and if they do embed themselves in the groin, the silk is pulled in with them," Holden adds. "This means fragments can be extracted simply by pulling on the surrounding material."
Silkworms have long been the "industrial powerhouse of the silk world," but researchers are studying giant gold orb weaver spiders for their silk-producing capabilities, says the magazine's Jessica Griggs. The magazine says, "Weight for weight, spider silk is 20 times as strong as steel and four times as tough as Kevlar."
And it's flexible, stretching as much as 50 percent of its length while eliciting no immune reaction in humans. As yet, though, spider silk is too labor-intensive to exploit in sufficient quantity commercially.
When is there not a ghost of a chance that the Tweets coming your way are authentic?
When you're reading Tweets from celebrities who hire ghost Tweeters to handle their image-making, says Erin Biba in Wired magazine. Of the 250 million posts published every day, many are by hired professionals. In our social-media-obsessed culture, capturing the most followers can be a "blood sport," costing celebrities money and reputation. So ghost writers and impersonators become a natural part of the game.
Enter ghost writer Annie Colbert, who has posted for "Hollywood starlets, sports icons, authors and tech biggies" like former Apple chief venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki. Everything put out there is generated by the ghost poster or their team. For careful Twitter management, they plan the entire week, then post throughout, identifying people to be followed and responded to.
Colbert will take time to study clients' previous Tweets to capture their style: Do they use emoticons? Do they abbreviate certain words? These are key tipoffs.
So how can you tell if a favorite celebrity has a ghost Tweeter? In a word, Colbert answers, when the feed goes from informal to formal voice, you can assume it's "been taken over by a publicist."
Brothers Bill and Rich Sones are Cuyahoga County residents who research and write the Strange But True column. Send questions to strangetrue@cs.com.
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