Lacing up his fútbol shoes, for biochemist Fernando Goldbaum, is the first step in rebooting his brain. After that, he may look like he's just kicking a soccer ball. But as he dribbles, passes, and shoots, he's uncluttering his mind, the better to concentrate when he gets back to the lab.

“Soccer is very important for me,” says Goldbaum, an HHMI international research scholar at Leloir Institute in Buenos Aires. “Without any doubt, it clears my head.” That's why, at least once a week, he and about a dozen researchers, fellows, and professors from the institute meet for an after-work match at a nearby indoor field.

Other sports offer fitness, competition, and social interaction, but they're mere exercise. Fútbol (we call it soccer) is one of Goldbaum's two lifelong passions—and a family tradition. “My father played soccer and was also a referee,” he says. “And I have an uncle who played professionally, a goalkeeper in the Argentinean leagues for 20 years.”

A devoted amateur player since childhood, Goldbaum has downshifted from the full outdoor field to the smaller indoor pitch without regret. At age 48, “The main thing is that, for 90 minutes, you can keep playing with people 10 or 20 years younger than you are. On the big field, that's almost impossible.”

Goldbaum's second passion, of course, is science. As a small boy, “I used to make little experiments at home and at school.” He recalls masking the surface of a leaf with a disc of foil cut from the seal on a wine bottle. “You leave it on the leaf for a week, and when you remove it, you have a green leaf with a white circle where the chlorophyll has disappeared, due to the lack of sunlight. That was astonishing for me.”

Illustration: Wacso

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