Anti Gravity: Eye off the Ball; April 2005; Scientific American Magazine; by Steve Mirsky; 1 Page(s)

Outlined against a blue-gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Concussion, Arthritis, Torn Anterior Cruciate Ligament and The Pile.

It's football season--for me, anyway. True, this is the April issue, which coincides with the start of the baseball season, thank goodness. But I'm writing these words in the week leading up to the Super Bowl, so football is on my mind--specifically the way the game chews up and spits out the bodies of its participants, willing though they be.