Category Archives: Transhuman News

This network is a visual representation of something I have jokingly begun calling the MLS Player Genome Project.

Using statistics from the Opta's MLS chalkboards and a heavy amount of number crunching, each player (having played at least the minimum minutes required by the high lord sample size) is compared to every other player in MLS. Their positional tendencies and statistical dispositions are each carefully compared and contrasted.

During this process, each pair of players is assigned a similarity score. If this score is above a certain threshold, the representative nodes of the two similar players are connected. Then, using different visual clustering techniques, this enormous matrix of player comparisons is untangled into the visualization seen above.

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The results are impressive. Forwards are clustered together in blue on the bottom left. Connected to the forwards are attack-minded midfielders in green. The left side of the green cluster seems to be more flank players, while the right side of the cluster seems to have a few more central players.

Moving from the green midfielders, we connect to the red cluster which seems to be home to some more conservative midfielders. And, as expected, this conservatism grows as you move from left to right until you find a handful of prototypical defensive midfielders in Dax McCarty and Kyle Beckerman at the extreme. The fullbacks have their own cluster, featuring players that almost exclusively play wing back. And the goalkeepers, as expected, were pretty easy to statistically pluck out of the crowd.

While these player connections are far from perfect (they are roughly based on mathematical concepts that online dating websites use for personal matching and what Pandora uses for deciphering your musical taste), much value can be gleaned from looking at MLS in this perspective. Strikers and fullbacks, for example, clearly still have very distinct and specific roles. The modern midfield on the other hand is becoming ever more nebulous, to the point that there is no separate cluster for flank midfielders.

Is that a surprise? Not really, since the traditional left and right midfielders commonly featured in a prototypical 4-4-2 are replaced with hybrid attacking wingers more commonly seen in a modern 4-3-3.

As North American soccer continues to grow and improve, I expect this network to become even more illuminating. The tactical game inside the game becomes increasingly sophisticated, so the types of roles that will be required will become even more distinct. A soccer game, after all, is never decided by players playing their positions on a whiteboard; its a series of actions and reactions.

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Central Winger: Sifting through Opta data to sequence the soccer genome

Moso bamboo. Credit: Wikipedia, Creative Commons

Published: Feb. 26, 2013 at 8:55 PM

BEIJING, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- Chinese scientists report they have decoded the genome for a variety of bamboo in hopes of improving it and using the plant as an alternative to wood.

The results of the study of moso bamboo, a giant timber bamboo that can grow to more than 90 feet tall, have been published in the journal Nature Genetics.

Jiang Zehui, leader of the researchers responsible for decoding the genome, said the team began their work on the moso bamboo, the most common species used in the bamboo textile industry of China, in 2007, China's state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

China is the world's biggest grower and user of bamboo with 9.5 million acres of moso bamboo, which accounts for 72 percent of the country's bamboo-planting area.

One of the fastest-growing plants in the world, moso bamboo can grow 40 inches in just 24 hours if conditions are favorable.

The decoded genome will allow scientists to modify the species and find new uses for it, Han Bin, a senior genetics researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said.

The decoded genome will also help alleviate food shortages for giant pandas, Han said.

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Genome of Chinese bamboo decoded