See, White People Have Belly Buttons Like This

Why do black people run faster than white people while white people swim faster than black people? Hahaha, are you kidding? There’s NO WAY I’m touching that question! Science, however, is less concerned with the attendant controversies: Researchers at Duke University have determined that the placement of the belly button-the body’s center of gravity-makes all the difference. Study author Andre Bejan breaks it down.

‘Individuals of West African-origin have longer legs than European-origin athletes, which means their belly-buttons are three centimeters (1.18 inches) higher than whites.’

That means the black athletes have a “hidden height” that is three percent greater than whites’, which gives them a significant speed advantage on the track.

Professor Bejan adds: ‘Locomotion is essentially a continual process of falling forward, and mass that falls from a higher altitude, falls faster.’

In the pool, meanwhile, whites have the advantage because they have longer torsos, so their belly-buttons sit lower on the body.

Before you get all, I dunno, however you’re going to get, do make a note of this: The study “focused on the athletes’ geographic origins and biology, not race, which the authors of the study call a ‘social construct.’” So there you go.

[Pic via]