Red isn’t just the color sin, it’s the color of victory, at least in the opinion of two researchers at the University of Durham, U.K. The journal Nature reports that the Durham scientists looked at the outcomes of combat events in the recent Olympics in which combatants are randomly assigned either blue or red outfits (boxing, tae kwon do, Greco-Roman wrestling and freestyle wrestling) and found that those wearing red won 55% of all competitions. In bouts deemed to be evenly matched, Nature reports, the bearers of red did even better, winning more than 60% of the time. The same researchers also looked at last year’s Euro 2004 soccer tournament in Portugal, and in particular at the five teams that wore two different colours, one of them red, in different games during the competition, and found that teams who changed their colors performed better when wearing red. The scientists confess that they don’t know why red would encourage victory, but they are not without theories. One suggests that a red face is commonly associated with anger and aggression, so a bright red shirt or headgear may intimidate an opponent. Another posits that red clothes could actually boost the wearer’s testosterone levels. Read more here.