Every four years, the premier event at the summer Olympics is the 100 meter dash, the swift sprint that you can literally miss by sneezing. In the past two summer games in London and Beijing, the man who won the race was the Jamaican phenom Usain Bolt. Bolt quickly earned the nickname of being the fastest man on earth, which no one has yet been able to take away.

His talent is simply that he generates more power than other sprinters. But he also does something else that’s fascinating. He has found a way to reduce the cross section of his body, which, in effect, reduces the aerodynamic drag while he runs. That was the finding from a study from