Pushing, shoving, bumping and falling are always seen in this sport, which is often referred to as rugby on wheels.

 Roller Derby, a sport mostly dominated by women, is all about getting down and dirty on the track while trying to lap the opposing team.

Tucson, Ariz.- Restaurants and shops along Fourth Avenue have a particular vibe of art, culture and tradition.

Martin's Comida Chingona Mexican Restaurant fits this vibe perfectly.

Like many of the restaurants along Fourth Avenue, Martin's is a small business independently owned by one man.... who is the one and only chef in the restaurant.

Do you find yourself wanting to escape the typical lunchtime routines? Are you looking for an alternative source of revenue and employment? Instead of having to pick up your food order, why not have it be conveniently delivered to you curbside?

In an effort to keep pace with the changing technological-savvy culture today, the culinary industry has developed food on-the-go. Let's face it, whatever is convenient for us typically seems like the appropriate answer.

If you don’t know what I am talking about by now, then you are missing out.

This is the language of food trucks.

Drawing up scratch recipes ranging from unique renditions of your favorite homemade grilled cheese sandwich to the exotic creations of hot dogs and french toast, food trucks are the food of the future.

The modern food truck has found its calling card behind the emergence of the social media industry. If food trucks continue to deliver high-quality meals, whose to say this penciled trend won’t transition to permanent ink?

This bustling lunch on wheels industry is sweeping the nation by a firestorm.

If you’ve ever caught yourself flipping channels, I would be confident in placing my bet that you’ve come across the Food Network once or twice.

In fact, I would bet you have stopped on Tyler Florence’s hit series show: The Great Food Truck Race. The multi-week show follows around eight teams that are given challenges to outsell one another in a coast-to-coast road trip.

With the pioneers of the industry leading the charge, you can now mix in Tucson amongst Seattle, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

Researchers at the University of Arizona are attempting to weigh the risks and benefits of vitamin D supplementation, a debate that has continued for decades.

“Vitamin D is historically associated with calcium use and strengthening bones, but now it's showing health benefits that 20 or 30 years ago health professionals dismissed because of lack of information,” says Dr. Ron Watson, University of Arizona Professor in Health Promotion Sciences Division of the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.

Watson was funded for 30 years by the Wallace Research Foundation to study dietary supplements in health promotion. He recently edited and published a handbook of vitamin D in human health.

“The main source of vitamin D is sunlight and we get very little from what we eat,” says Watson.

With fully 67 percent of Internet users utilizing social networking platforms today, social media has revolutionized the way we connect with one another across vast distances. But few would be willing to walk the distance to see those far-away friends.

In a recent study, archaeologists and sociologists found that ancient Southwest communities would make the trek to maintain social relationships with people hundreds of miles away.

Over a five-year period, Mills and her team looked at a combination of new and existing archaeological data as well as analyzed more than 800,000 decorated ceramics and 4,800 pieces of obsidian. They composed a database containing 4.3 million artifacts from 700 western Southwestern sites, which included Arizona and Western New Mexico.

April 22 was Earth Day. For some, this conjures fears of global warming, oil shortages and rising gas prices, threats that signal the impeding and almost certain death to gasoline-powered vehicles.

Automotive enthusiasts and consumers alike are shifting their priorities when shopping for cars, as demonstrated by the growing popularity of efficient and smaller models, alternative fuel and electric vehicles.

However, EV’s are not an easy sell. They carry a stigma of being slow with short ranges and limited practicality. To many, the idea of driving an EV has only ever been mildly appealing.

Coupled with arguments that EV’s take too long to charge, it is unlikely that the U.S. will reach the DOE’s goal of 1 million electric cars on the road by 2015.

There is hope for Arizonans, though.

Kari Schlachtenhaufen shows her new Model S to a curious bystander

Shelves filled with local herbs from the Southern Arizona desert. Photo by Ashley Guttuso

You won’t find white lab coats, prescription pads, or even a pharmacy sign here.  Just shelves holding old mason jars filled with Siberian Ginseng, Sarsaparilla, Sassafras, Wild Cherry Bark, among an abundance of other herbs.

Tucson Herb Store owner Amanda Brown mixes up oils, herbs, and other native Southern Arizona plants for customers seeking an alternative to traditional, over-the-counter, and prescription medications.

“Some people are skeptical at first,” said Brown after she retold a story about a New Jersey couple that recently visited her shop.  Unaccustomed to natural healing methods from Southern Arizona’s local desert plants and flowers, the couple chose a few items to implement into their health care routine, a routine Brown said is a natural approach to health that treats what western medicine sometimes cannot.

“It’s a totally different lifestyle for some people who haven’t used herbal medicine before,” Brown said about the ancient tradition of herbalism, the study and use of medicinal properties of plants.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 48 percent of Americans use at least one prescription while 31 percent use two or more prescribed medications monthly.  These numbers have continued to rise steadily throughout the past ten years, according to the CDC.

With prescription drug use steadily rising along with costly health care, it’s no wonder more people are turning to alternative medical practices.

When Branch Rickey took a chance on the athletic Kansas City Monarchs second baseman, Jackie Robinson, the former Brooklyn Dodgers executive was asked why.

"[A box score] doesn't tell how big you are, what church you attend, what color you are, or how your father voted in the last election. It just tells what kind of baseball player you were on that particular day."

Rickey's quote remains just as pertinent today, following Jason Collins' announcement on Monday that he is gay. At the end of the day, all players are just numbers on a box score, and you either performed well or you didn't.

Yet, until the 12-year NBA veteran came out there had never been an openly gay player within the four major sporting leagues in the United States.

Why did it take so long for a player like Collins to come out?

He came out and the world didn't end. The sun still set and NBA players didn't quit their respective rosters for fear of playing with a gay athlete.

Nationwide support, ranging from future hall-of-fame basketball players Kobe Bryant and Jason Kidd, to President Obama and former President Clinton, heavily overshadowed the naysayers such as Mike Wallace and Chris Broussard.

However, as the NHL begins its partnership with the You Can Play project, an organization dedicated to ensuring equality for all athletes, NFL players, Chris Kluwe and Brendon Ayanbadejo, lobby for equal right in the NFL, and the NBA stands behind Collins, one question remains: where is Major League Baseball?

Commissioner Bud Selig calls Major League Baseball a "social institution."
Tuesday morning, his office released to Arizona Sonora News Service the MLB's first statement on Collins' decision.

University of Arizona engineers and doctors are teaming up to create some of the world’s most innovative medical gadgets.

Researchers develop intelligent wireless textiles into body-worn sensors that track diabetic ulcer formation, knee osteoarthritis, back pain, risk of stroke and elderly falls, while providing doctors vital feedback.

“The world is our lab,” says Dr. Bijan Najafi, Director of the UA Interdisciplinary Consortium on Advanced Motion Performance (iCAMP).

iCAMP is one of the only research and development collaborations that brings together professionals from all academic departments to develop practical interventions for medical needs. Researchers also include about 15 undergraduate students who are being taught the importance of innovation and marketing intellectual property.