The Center for Environmental Health released a report yesterday saying that there are high lead levels in artificial turf. You know, the kind you play sports on.

Not knowing who the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) were, I check wikipedia. No entry. Reading their site will lead you to think they hate all industry. This doesn't affect what they report, but you should keep it in mind. The impetus for their testing was a CDC report about artificial turf. It is not apparent whether the CEH undertook their study prior to or after the CDC. 

We've covered how to treat a broken foot before, but I had to mention a few more things about it in light of some news. I am not going to say I watch BMX, but I know of it. This is the sport where people think it's a great idea to jump obstacles and soar high on bikes. One of the stars of the sport is Bubba Harris. He's a pro BMXer who knows a thing or two about injuries.

For instance, he suffered an injury almost a year ago that was so bad that doctors thought they would have to amputate his foot. The injury was one of the worst for a foot and it exposed tendons, ligaments and more. His foot was literally hanging by a tendon and some skin.

Today I was going to write about Chipper Jones' injury, but that can wait. What I wanted to chat about today is the very cool knee injury videos on You Tube. No, I'm not talking about the ones that show the actual injuries. I don't know about you, but it makes me squeamish to watch that happen. I remember injuries to myself and how I felt when they happened. A shiver goes up my back.

What I am talking about are the cool educational knee videos on You Tube. A few are low budget and missing information, but then a few others are right on topic. Let's take a look at a few of them:

The first video is from Dr. Vijay Vad, the PGA Tour doctor. It is a great visual walk through of the main parts of the knee and common injuries.

We're into the injury aspect of sports, but we also discuss topics related to preventing injuries. A newer technology called Cord Technologies is helping more athletes improve their performance and prevent injuries. It's a fascinating technology with targeted products.

This email interview with John Frappier of Athletic Republic is from earlier in the year and sheds light on the specifics of this newer technology. John is one of the visionaries when it comes to sports technology.

1) What is Athletic Republic?

Yep, the link is tenuous at best, but dengue fever can be considered a legitimate sports injury. Not buying it? Try talking to Diego Hypolito. What? Never heard of the only South American medalist to ever medal at the Gymnastic World Championships? Seriously, you need to expand your sports knowledge.

Dengue fever should be pronounced like Ben Gay, but with a D. Hence, Den Gay. The fascinating thing about this is the media reports concerning Hypolito's infection. Check this out:

He's recovering and could be released from the hospital on Tuesday. The three or four days he missed because of dengue will not affect his training for the Olympics. He will be completely recovered and ready to practice on April 23. - Dr. Robson de Bem.

Marion Jones is in the news again. This time she, or should I say her attorney, is pleading to the court to avoid prison time. Her attorney saus she has suffered enough. As if. Marion Jones turned in her medals and has become a ghost in the world of track and field, but she still cheated. More importantly, she lied.

You might be wondering how the clear THG helps athletes and why would they use it. Hopefully, the run through below helps you become more acquainted with the steroid. 

What is the clear THG? Big word alert. It's real name is tetrahydrogestrinone. Yeah, good luck with that one. It's an anabolic steroid. 

With last night's win against the New York Giants, the New England Patriots become the first NFL team to win 16 regular season games without a loss. That's called perfection, and it's a problem for the 90% of NFL fans that aren't Patriots lovers. Don't get me wrong, a perfect NFL regular season is something to behold, but I think the current medical research shows that it causes visceral hate in most football fans.

I don't ski. I've never skied, which is why I haven't discussed any skiing injuries. What I do know is that you see knee injuries in skiing more than any other injury, well, outside of frostbite. The injury today is a broken forearm and the winner is Resi Stiegler. (Warning the website has music.) I should say loser, as she is the giant slalom champion for the United States. She suffered injuries in a crash at the World Cup giant slalom race today.

Resi ended up with the following list of injuries:

We're going to take a break today and move from covering athletes so that we can cover someone who covers them, Peter Gammons. Peter Gammons is the premiere baseball analyst in the business. Working for ESPN, Peter has been a figure of analysis, commentary and information for years. On June 27, 2006 Peter Gammons suffered a brain aneurysm.

A brain aneurysm is a bulging or ballooning of one of the arteries in your brain. There are two types of brain aneurysms: unruptured and ruptured. In an unruptured brain aneurysm the bulge has not burst. In a ruptured brain aneurysm the bulge bursts. We're going to talk about unruptured brain aneurysms and their treatment, because only 20% of patients that suffer a ruptured brain aneurysm live without complications.

What are the symptoms of a brain aneurysm? In some cases there will be no symptoms if the brain aneurysm hasn't burst or is leaking slowly. In fact, it is thought that one in fifteen people have a brain aneurysm and do not know it. For those who have symptoms and their brain aneurysm has not burst, these are the most common: speech problems, memory loss, coordination loss, poor peripheral vision and behavioral changes.

Your knees are probably the most important part of your body if you participate in sports. They're used for everything from running to balancing to leveraging. It's no fun when you suffer a knee injury, and it's definitely not fun when your knees are arthritic.

Arthritic knees aren't necessarily caused by any particular injury. Arthritis can be a degenerative condition caused by hereditary, infection or any number of things. When it hits your knees it typically affects the meniscus in your knee. The meniscus is two parts of cartilage that sit between your knee joint. If you lose or injure that it's a long road to recovery, as meniscus doesn't regrow.

For that reason it's great news that Dr. Kevin Stone of the Stone Clinic has been researching the possibility of meniscus transplantation. This procedure involves taking menisci from organ donors and placing it into someone suffering from knee arthritis. In testing the procedure worked 42 of 47 times, which means that the menisci transplanted was viable in the patient.