Bred and Circuses; July 2012; Scientific American Magazine; by Steve Mirsky; 1 Page(s)

When last we met, the subject was athletic performance enhancement. I spoke of modalities for raising one's game, including surgery, lucky genetics and, of course, eau de Canseco, also known as anabolic steroids. That column contended that many world-class athletes are freaksof nature, yes, but freaks nonetheless. In effect, they make use of performance-enhancing substances that happen to be produced by their own bodies rather than by a friend of a friend who knows a really good pharmaceutical chemist.

I'll continue to pull on that thread briefly here because within days of that column going to press, news broke that is directly related to the topic. After being lobbied by the union representing its players, the National Football League has agreed to do a study. The investigation will try to determine if football players, who represent the last remnants of a once thriving pre-Clovis North American population of megafauna, naturally have crazy high amounts of compounds that can make one large.