The Canadian team of Ray Zahab, Kevin Vallely and Richard Weber have completed a 680 mile journey across Antarctica to the South Pole on foot in just under 34 days. This beats the previous Antarctic speed record by five days! They traveled on foot, skis, and snowshoes while pulling a sled with their equipment.

They endured altitude sickness, vertigo and massive, painful blisters.

They kept themselves fuelled with a 7,000-calorie-a-day diet of deep-fried bacon, cheese and huge chunks of butter.

"I'm dying for some pizza," said Mr Zahab, who added he was too excited to sleep.

Link to story. Link to website. -via Fark

The Recently Deflowered Girl is a 1965 etiquette book for those awkward moments you hadn't planned for, written by Edward Gorey under the name Hyacinthe Phyppe, an expert in such matters. In each "deflowerment" situation, the proper thing to do apparently is to provide a witty comeback. The entire scanned book is online with Gorey illustrations. This is SFW, unless you have a child nearby who knows what the archaic word "deflowerment" means. Link -Thanks, luke!

Update: The original post has been deleted, but I found another copy. Link

Medical researchers went to Mount Everest and took samples of their own blood while near the peak. What they found was shocking!

An average person at sea level has about 13-14 kilopascals (kPa) of oxygen in their bloodstream, University College of London medical researcher Dan Martin says. When his intensive care patients drop to around 8 kPa he gets very worried, and a normal person with 6 kPa of oxygen faces almost certain death. Imagine his shock, then, when he and three colleagues on the top of Mount Everest measured their own blood oxygen level to be between 2.5 and 4 kPa, the lowest ever measured in live people.

Martin and his colleagues -all experienced climbers- also took muscle biopsies while on the mountain. They hope their findings may lead to knowledge that will help patients in intensive care, where sudden oxygen drops can lead to death. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health_medicine/4298495.html -via Digg

(image credit: Pavel Novak)

Bernice Gallego of Fresno, California had no idea what the baseball card she found in her attic might be worth, so she listed it on eBay with a starting bid of $10. After a few inquiries about the card, she pulled the auction and decided to have the card appraised.

Turns out her hunch was correct. She did have something more valuable. The card she found was made in 1869 and featured the "Red Stocking B.B. Club of Cincinnati," the sport's first professional team. It's considered one of the first baseball cards ever produced and its actual value could be worth more than $100,000 when she puts it back on eBay (with a higher starting price, of course).

The 72-year-old was quite surprised. She has never even been to a baseball game! Link -Thanks, Geekazoid!

Remember Retro Sabotage (previously at Neatorama) where you can play hilariously sabotaged classic arcade games? Now they have something new! See if you can figure out what is different about this version of Super Mario Bros. from 1985. You can construct one of your own, too! Link -Thanks, Rico & Tof!

As part of their divorce settlement, a doctor in New York state is requesting the return of a kidney he donated to his wife in 2001!

The doctor claims his wife began having an affair sometime after the transplant.

"We were in a million-dollar home, I was a full-time surgeon, full-time father and a dedicated husband. And I saved her life, and there's nothing bad about what I did, I'd do it again. But the pain is unbearable," the doctor said.

The unnamed doctor will, however, settle for $1.5 million. Link -Thanks, Gigi1!

Update: Here's a link with more information on the story.

See what happens when a bunch of students have some free time and a lot of snow?

This image is a 5' sculpture made out of snow. In March of 2003, there was a huge blizzard in Denver and school was canceled for an entire week. With nothing else to do and artistic frustration to get out, my cousins, brother, sister, and I decided to sculpt an enormous face in the packed snow. I hope you post this work of art - I personally think it's awesome

I think it's awesome, too! http://clem.mscd.edu/~ghua/images/gallery/sculpture_01.jpg -Thanks, GwenAnn Hua!

You'd think that making a product simpler would be a good thing, but sometimes minimalism goes too far. Cool Material has a list of beautiful minimalist products that are so simple they may be hard for a normal person to use! Pictured is the Nimbus Ultimate Wheel, which does away with the bicycle's second wheel, gears, seat, and almost everything else! Link -Thanks, Tim!

From Prague, Czech Republic: If you want to promote the slogan "Europe Without Barriers", what better place to put it than on some police barriers? Link -Thanks, Jeff!

In today’s Lunchtime Quiz from mental_floss, try to match up the titles of nine 007 films with the nine men who held the office of U.S. president when those movies were initially released. This is not easy! Since I didn't know the answers, I tried to line them up by how old they seemed, and scored only 22%. The average score so far is 49%. Good luck! http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/21488

Last year's earthquake in Sichuan province, China killed 69,000 people and flattened thousands of buildings, including schools. A team led by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban is constructing new temporary but strong school buildings using plywood and cardboard tubes.

Recycled paper tubes aren't just useful for holding architectural blueprints. They can be molded into load-bearing columns, bent into trusses and rapidly assembled, and can be made waterproof and fire resistant. Because paper tubes are available in various thickness and diameters, they can be added to a structure to support more weight as necessary. Ban has said he hopes to build structures a few stories high.

The work is being done by Japanese and Chinese students working together. See pictures of the process, and a completed school at Treehugger. Link -Thanks, Chris Tackett!

(YouTube link)
A lovely story about an elephant and a dog who found each other at the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee. -via Arbroath

A ski lift mishap at Blue Sky Basin resort in Vail, Colorado left a 48-year-old man hanging upside down without his pants on New Years Day.

It appears that the chairlift's fold-down seat was somehow not in the lowered position, which caused the man to partially fall through the resulting gap. His right ski got jammed in the ascending chairlift, and that kept him upended since his boot never dislodged from its binding. As seen in the photos on the following pages (which were snapped by fellow skiers), the Skyline Express lift was stopped shortly after the pair's botched boarding resulted in the man dangling from the lift. The exposed skier was stuck for about 15 minutes before Vail personnel backed the lift up and successfully dislodged the unidentified man from the four-seat chair.

Link -via YesButNoButYes

Topless Robot lists The 10 Best Repainted Action Figures of All Time.

They're the bane of many an action figure collector's existence--repaints. That's when a manufacturer takes an existing action figure, paints it in all-new colors and tries to pass it off as a new figure, such as "Arctic Batman." This allows the company to squeeze a little more profit out of the expensive mold they created for the original figure. Collectors hate them, kids are indifferent to them and the figures warm the pegs. But once in a while, a figure is repainted (along with a few minor tweaks) and is passed off not as just a new figure, but a brand-new character. The results are often laughable but, once in a while, kinda cool.

Pictured is TC14, who resembles another robot we all know and love, but couldn't be the same, because he is silver! Link -Thanks, Keith!

Can you think logically? Take the armchair logic test! There are only 15 questions, and it doesn't take very long -if you are logical! I scored only 87%, which disappoints me. Link -via the Presurfer

(image credit: Flickr user loquenoves)