Microbiomes & Health "We conducted a study during a flat track roller derby tournament, and found that teammates shared distinct skin microbial communities before and after playing against another team, but that opposing teams’ bacterial communities converged during the course of a roller derby bout." [more inside]
posted by OmieWise on Apr 18, 2013 - 11 comments

Journalists miss the real ($60M) roller derby story. Every time.
posted by iamkimiam on Jan 12, 2013 - 46 comments

Let's Go to the Morgue! features images dug up from the San Francisco Chronicle's basement photo archives. Peter Hartlaub got distracted from his parenting blog to find and caption vintage photos of Golden Gate BART and Other Failed Rapid Transit Dreams, Sexy time! Five decades of Bay Area bathing suits, Tourist season in San Francisco, Six decades of roller derby in the Bay Area, When arcades ruled the Bay Area and A journey back to your high school prom. [more inside]
posted by oneirodynia on Jul 28, 2011 - 15 comments

Competitive roller derby is undergoing a transformation: skaters are adopting tactics that are unconventional, but legal, and other teams have to adopt them to just keep up.
posted by LSK on Oct 24, 2010 - 63 comments

Mercedes Stafford is the former president of the Cincinnati Roller Girls. She skated under the name 'Sadistic Sadie,' and won the 2009 Most Valuable Skater award. She was the Women's Flat Track Derby Association's Featured Skater in May 2010. On June 1, she pleaded guilty to airline-ticket wire fraud. Between 2007 and 2009, while she worked for United Airlines, she stole $400,000 worth of airline tickets, then sold them to her friends and family, a group that included some roller-derby folks, and pocketed around $50,000. After her plea, the WFTDA removed her Featured Skater page from their site.
posted by box on Jun 3, 2010 - 44 comments

Screw cheezburgers. All the fun of "LOLcats," but with badass roller derby girls instead. Talk derby to me!
posted by CitizenD on Sep 18, 2007 - 112 comments

It's Roller Derby, and it's back in a big way. Especially appreciated: Their literary tastes.
posted by Astro Zombie on Jan 11, 2006 - 55 comments

A Roller Derby revival has been building for quite some time. The All-American, All-kickass sport has had a long history (previously discussed here) and gone through multiple waves. Although it has been associate with a fair amount of cheese in the past, a new generation of skaters are taking it on and taking it seriously. Since it's the off season, why not bone up on RD's history and rules? Or just find a league near you.
posted by piratebowling on Nov 27, 2005 - 34 comments

Today (if it's still Aug. 13th where you are) is the 70th birthday of the Roller Derby (being duly celebrated in Chicago and elsewhere). Tomorrow (unless it's already Aug. 14th where you are) is the 70th birthday of the Social Security Act. Compare and contrast...
(Round-numbered birthdays and anniversaries, you gotta love em. Hard to believe Burt "Robin" Ward turned 60 last month... but that "American Gothic" paining is only 75 years old.)
posted by wendell on Aug 13, 2005 - 7 comments