How about a person who creates an innovative diet/training regime - that actually works

Or even the ones building the latest undetectable steroids, blood transfusion techniques to get High Altitude blood into the system, etc..

Much more interesting reading than "I put a rails GUI infront of a simple database" startups.

I don't know if this is still the case, but when my team applied for YC there was a specific question about 'hacking' something, specifically, not a computer. So I would say this sort of news would fall within the scope of the community.

This particular instance may not be 'hacking' according to Hoyle, but it's a story of people dedicated to revealing the full truth about a long-standing mystery of human history. I think a lot of what makes a hacker a hacker is their breadth of knowledge and ability to apply it usefully in unfamiliar situations, which does apply to many of the techniques mentioned within the article.

Either way it's interesting material - good for keeping your brain on its toes.

I agree. Hacker is a word that only a small subculture of computer programmers would call themselves, despite what attributes they might project on others. This article was interesting to hackers, I haven't met a hacker yet who wasn't at least peripherally interested in archaeology, architecture, psychology and history.

But does it mean we should include in this aggregator everything every hacker considers interesting (but is NOT hacker news at all)...?

according to wikipedia, technology is "a broad concept that deals with an animal species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects an animal species' ability to control and adapt to its environment" so the football player in your example, the one [not?] "'hacking' his body to optimize the actions that would lead to a touchdown" only fails to be a hacker by your definition ("a person who creates innovative technology" ) if he's not being innovative. which is a subjective decision that's impossible to evaluate from your analogy.

i worry about people using the word "hacker" so narrowly that we let our subjective prejudices arbitrarily limit our ability to innovate.

I agree. Isn't it a bit arrogant that every time we see somebody displaying ingenuity, inquisitiveness, or any other intellectual virtue, we think, "Hey, just like a computer programmer!"