Strollerderby : German

33 year old mom wins silver medal, saves son from leukemia

Brett Singer — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Dara Torres is an inspiration to many, competing in the Olympics at age 41, and winning. But I think the story of Oksana Chusovitina, a German gymnast, might be even more inspiring.

Here's the deal: Oksana is from Uzbekistan. Her son was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 3. There were no beds for him in her home country. Because of her gymnastics ability, she was able to move to Germany and join their team, while also getting her little boy the treatment he needed.

He seems to be doing better now, and to make the story even better, she just won a silver medal. She's also 33 years old in a sport where 22 is considered really old. Congratulations to her, and to her son.

Source/image: Detroit Free Press

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Like father like son

Younger Siblings May Give You A Brain Tumor. Which Is Nice.

Dad Gone Mad — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 18:00:00 GMT

A gaggle of German scientists have reported that children with three or more younger siblings face up to four times the risk of developing a brain tumor by age 15 compared to children with no siblings.

"The association with number of younger siblings, and not with number of older siblings, suggests that infections or re-infections in late childhood may play an important role in the development of pediatric nervous system tumors," said lead researcher Dr. Andrea Altieri, of the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, Germany.

The findings are published in the Dec. 12 issue of Neurology, which I read for the articles and certainly not the nudie centerfold pics of cancer researchers.

There are detractors who say the German study is unsatisfactory. Dr. Paul Graham Fisher of Stanford University says the study's suggestion that infections may play a role in brain-tumor development has been contradicted by other recent epidemiological research. Also, the study is based on a sample of 13,600 Swedish brain tumor cases, yah?

"Maybe it's because Scandinavian people have more children after the first one is diagnosed with a brain tumor," he said.

Or maybe it's because the horny scientists were so busy looking at the yoddeling, blonde-braided, large-breasted Swedish women that they weren't paying proper attention to the brain tumors.