For 26 years straight, New Zealand has defeated the US in rugby to win the Ross Island Cup. But these aren't professional rugby players -they are scientists and support staff who live and work in Antarctica! The national team back home in New Zealand are the All Blacks, but the team from Scott Base goes by the name Ice Blacks. The US team from McMurdo Station, well, most of them don't even know how to play rugby before they are recruited for the annual game. Yesterday's game is recounted in embarrassing detail at Discover Magazine. Link

See the New Zealand Antarctic team performing their customary haka in this video from a few years ago. Link

(image credit: Chaz Firestone)

Underwater caterpillars don't turn into butterflies or moths, because they are dead, right? Not so for twelve species of caterpillars that live in Hawaii. Evolutionary biologist Daniel Rubinoff, who has been studying moth genus Hyposmocoma for seven years, said he couldn't believe it the first time he spotted a caterpillar living underwater.

They usually eat algae or lichen, and build silk cases -- which one species even adorns with bird feathers -- for shelter and camouflage. They spin silk drag lines to withstand the high pressure of fast floodwaters.

Unlike other amphibious creatures that can survive underwater on stored oxygen but must come back up for air, these caterpillars can spend several weeks without ever breaking the surface, according to the paper, which was published online on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It isn't yet clear how the insects do it. Rubinoff and co-worker Patrick Schmitz of the University of Hawaii did not find any water-blocking stopper over the caterpillars' tracheae or evidence of gills. The animals drowned quickly when kept in standing water, so they seem to need the higher levels of oxygen present in running water, and probably absorb it directly through pores in their body, the scientists said.

Link -via Digg

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Edison Studios made the first movie version of Frankenstein in 1910. It was released 100 years ago last week. Frankensteinia has details and the story of how the film was lost and found a half-century later. Link -via Metafilter

Since wines range from dirt cheap to astronomically expensive, fraudulent wine dealers are raking in the dough by diluting expensive wines with cheaper varieties, or mislabeling the vintage. How to catch these crooks? Carbon dating! Scientists can detect a wine's vintage to within a year using methods to detect traces of radioactive carbon-14 released into the atmosphere by nuclear testing.

Almost all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere contains the stable carbon-12 form of the element. Each atom of carbon-12 has six neutrons and six protons in its nucleus. But atmospheric atomic bomb tests, which ended in 1963, released vast amounts of radioactive carbon-14 into the air. A carbon-14 atom has two extra neutrons.

When grapes grow on the vine, they absorb carbon dioxide, which contains both stable carbon and traces of radioactive carbon-14 left over from bomb tests, from the air. As time goes by, carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning dilutes the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere.

The proportions of the different types of carbon pinpoint the wine's age. This method could be used to date other consumables, if we didn't have expiration dates. Link -via Arbroath

The enormous stone orb that chased Indiana Jones in the opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark is based on actual stone spheres found in Costa Rica. The mysterious stones are the focus of study for University of Kansas anthropology professor John Hoopes. Hoopes is evaluating whether the stones should be granted World Heritage Status for UNESCO.

"The earliest reports of the stones come from the late 19th century, but they weren't really reported scientifically until the 1930s -- so they're a relatively recent discovery," Hoopes said. "They remained unknown until the United Fruit Company began clearing land for banana plantations in southern Costa Rica."

According to Hoopes, around 300 balls are known to exist, with the largest weighing 16 tons and measuring eight feet in diameter. Many of these are clustered in Costa Rica's Diquis Delta region. Some remain pristine in the original places of discovery, but many others have been relocated or damaged due to erosion, fires and vandalism.

The KU researcher said that scientists believe the stones were first created around 600 A.D., with most dating to after 1,000 A.D. but before the Spanish conquest.

Hoopes says the stones are definitely man made, despite legends linking them to Atlantis or space aliens, but scientists don't know why they were created. Link -via Digg

There's a caterpillar in this photograph taken in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Can you see it? Better yet, can you identify it? From Flickr user WohinAuswandern. Link -via TYWKIWDBI

Reed Sandridge lost his job last year and took up a new hobby. He gives away $10 every day to someone who looks as if they could use it, a different person every day. And Sandridge expects nothing in return but a good feeling.

His mom, the daughter of a coal miner whom he remembers most for her kindness, always told him that when you're going through tough times, that's when you most need to give back.

So not long after he was laid off, on the third anniversary of his mom's death, he started his "year of giving," documenting each $10 gift in a small black notebook and then blogging about the people he meets. By Day 94, he had given away almost $1,000, handing out money in blizzards, in rainstorms, on the sunniest of days.

Sandridge is using his savings and his unemployment benefits for the giveaways. Some of the folks he gives money to use it to help others. He tells stories of the people he meets in his blog, which has led others to help them out as well. Link to story. Link to blog. -via Digg

(image credit: Katherine Frey/the Washington Post)

Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss tests your knowledge and memory of advertising slogans, recent, old, and even older. The questions are not easy, especially if you have grown immune to advertising. I only scored 45%, which means I only got the really old ones right! Link

David Striegl of Canberra, Australia was jogging on Mount Ainslie during his lunch break when he was assaulted by a kangaroo who punched him in the face! Striegl was found dazed and bleeding and was taken to a hospital by a passing motorist.

His only injury seemed to be some cuts and bruises, a black eye and a wounded ego with his colleagues making fun of his misfortune and giving him a new nickname – “Skippy”.

"The main thing they've been asking is whether I got one (punch) back on the roo,” he told the Australian Associated Press.

"I can't even say that, because one punch and it put me to the floor.

"All my years of playing football and never a fight, and then I have a fight with a kangaroo."

Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: EPA)

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Maybe he has been exposed to the seamier side of the internet. Like they say, what has been seen cannot be unseen! -via Unique Daily

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Kuky Returns (Kuky se vrací) is a beautiful children's film from Czech director Jan Sverák. Watching the trailer, it makes me think of The Velveteen Rabbit crossed with the game Samorost.

Kuky Returns is the story of a boy six Ondra, who suffers from asthma, and so on "health reasons" must be off his favorite toy - a pink bear kuky. When mom Kukyho throw in the trash, it will work Ondrová fantasy in which experienced Kukyho adventure in an unknown natural world. It's really just a dream a little boy or kuky actually went to the biggest adventure of his plush life

I hope this will eventually be available to US audiences. Link -via reddit

Tried & True has instructions for making this festive Peep Wreath for Easter. It's supposed to last for years, but my kids would have the whole thing eaten in a day or so! Link -via mental_floss

Tom Schifanella collects classic luggage labels and shares them through his Flickr stream. A suitcase covered with these is a sign of a life grandly lived.

Luggage labels are fascinating bits of hotel history from the golden age of travel, roughly the 1900's to 1960's. During this time these labels were used by hotels as advertising and eagerly applied to steamer trunks, suitcases and all sorts of luggage by hotel staff, mainly bellhops.

Today, these same labels are highly desirable and sought after by collectors all over the world. Many of the designs were produced by some of the best poster designers from the golden age of travel like Roger Broders, Jan Lavies and Mario Borgoni.

You could spend all day browsing this collection! Link -via Nag on the Lake

March 19th is World Sleep Day. Did you get enough sleep today?

World Sleep Day is an international annual event, intended to be a celebration of sleep and a call to action on important issues related to sleep, including medicine, education, social aspects and driving. It aims to lessen the burden of sleep problems on society through better prevention and management of sleep disorders. World Sleep Day 2010 is being held on March 19th, under the slogan "Sleep Well, Stay Healthy".

I would have posted this earlier, but I was asleep. http://worldsleepday.wasmonline.org/ -via Simply Left Behind

(image credit: Flickr user fofurasfelinas)

You may recall the story of the guy who sold the Nintendo game Stadium Events for $41,300. Other old video games can be sold for ridiculous amounts not because of any intrinsic value, but because of their documented rarity. For example, a cartridge containing Nintendo Campus Challenge is the only existing copy.

In the early 1990s, Nintendo held competitions on college campuses and at popular Spring Break destinations. Like the World Championships, players had six minutes to play for high scores on demo versions of Super Mario Bros. 3, PinBot, and Dr. Mario.

Most copies of the game were destroyed after the competition ended, but one Nintendo employee kept his cart and sold it to Rob Walters at a garage sale in 2006.

Two sellers later, the price was $20,100! Read about more super-valuable video games at mental_floss. Link