World Cup 2010
grrlscientist | July 6, 2010tags: Paul the Prognosticating Octopus Oracle Sez, soccer, football, World Cup 2010, fun, offbeat, weird, news
Paul the Prognosticating Octopus Oracle has disappointed his German fans by choosing Spain over Germany in tomorrow's World Cup Football match. Paul is a two-year-old English-born octopus of unknown species who has lived in the aquarium in Oberhausen, Germany since shortly after he was born.
Image: Mark Keppler / DAPD
This is a bummer for all those German fans who believe in tooth fairies and Santa Claus, because Paul the Prognosticating Octopus Oracle of Unknown Species (PPOOUS…
grrlscientist | June 30, 2010tags: How Can You Filter Out The Vuvuzela?, World Cup 2010, physics, technology, football, soccer, sports, television, Sixty Symbols, University of Nottingham, streaming video
A University of Nottingham video explains the physics that underlies the technology being developed to filter out that annoying drone from 30,000 blasting vuvuzelas in the background of all World Cup football matches. It's interesting to note that this is the same sort of software technology that ornithologists use to record (and "clean up" background noise inadvertently captured by) birdsong recordings.
grrlscientist | June 29, 2010tags: Fútbol Deporte Nacional, Tango y Fútbol, Argentina, Germany, World Cup 2010, soccer, football, Fútbol, satire, streaming video
If the Argentinian fútbol team plays as skillfully and as gracefully as this couple dances the Tango (and the implication is that they will), I think it's no contest: the Germans will lose on Saturday ... just sayin'.
grrlscientist | June 24, 2010tags: Meet Paul, Germany's Prognosticating Octopus, soccer, football, World Cup 2010, fun, offbeat, weird
Paul -- an octopus at the Sea Life public aquarium in Oberhausen, western Germany -- has so far correctly predicted the outcome of each of Germany's World Cup matches. On Tuesday, Paul contemplates Wednesday's match between Germany and Ghana. [larger view]
The World Cup and all the fanfare that surrounds it is truly amazing to experience. But perhaps strangest thing of all is that several zoos and aquariums in Germany have been asking some of their animals to predict the winners to the…