In case you haven’t caught them yet, here’s a recap of this week’s most popular stories. Bill Gates makes a huge investment calling for power and energy miracles; #iLookLikeAnEngineer redefines what an engineer should look like; a statistical model predicts play-calling of NFL teams with high accuracy; from a million miles out, a NASA camera captures a unique view of the moon, and analysis of men’s and women’s tennis performance finding differences not attributable to gender are among the top stories.
Quantitative Analysis of Men’s and Women’s Tennis Performance finds Differences Not Attributable to Gender
Quantitative analysis of the performance of men and women professional tennis players over the past five completed seasons shows for the first time that evidence of inconsistency in women’s play is likely attributable to match format (e.g., best of three or five sets), not gender, Stephanie Kovalchik revealed at a session focused on analytics of women’s sports at the 2015 Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM 2015) in Seattle.
From a Million Miles Away, NASA Camera Shows Moon Crossing Face of Earth
A NASA camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite captured a unique view of the moon as it moved in front of the sunlit side of Earth last month. The series of test images shows the fully illuminated “dark side” of the moon that is never visible from Earth. The images were captured by a four megapixel CCD camera and telescope on the DSCOVR satellite orbiting one million miles from Earth.
Statistical Model Predicts Play-calling of NFL Teams with High Accuracy
Researchers have built a statistical model that predicts the play-calling tendency of NFL teams with high accuracy. Their model, which correctly called run and pass plays at a high rate when tested using play-by-play data from actual NFL games, could be used by casual fans and even NFL defensive coordinators during real games to predict their opponent’s next play.
#ILookLikeAnEngineer: Challenging Stereotypes about Who Works in Tech
“Do you feel passionately about helping spread awareness about tech gender diversity? Do you not fit the ‘cookie-cutter mold’ of what people believe engineers ‘should look like?’ If you answered yes to any of these questions, I invite you to help spread the word and help us redefine ‘what an engineer should look like’ #iLookLikeAnEngineer,” Isis Wenger wrote. She posted a photo and launched the #iLookLikeAnEngineer hashtag on Twitter.
Bill Gates Calls for Power and Energy Miracles
Bill Gates is making a huge investment into clean-energy technology. Gates has already invested roughly $1 billion of his personal fortune in companies that are working on clean energy, and he recently told the Financial Times he plans to spend another $1 billion in the next five years on “wild-eyed” energy tech companies. In addition, he feels that the U.S. government should roughly triple energy R&D to $16 billion a year.