Word: cups
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Uptight and upset: here are two scenes from the last World Cup, in 2003. Three weeks out, the All Blacks held an open training session in Nelson, atop New Zealand's South Island. As the players turned it on for the 5,000 spectators, TIME's reporter asked squad official Matt McIlraith for a brief interview with the coach, John Mitchell, who was overseeing practice the way a chess master examines the board. While he didn't quite scoff, McIlraith made it clear there was precisely zero chance of the request being granted. Mitchell wasn't feeding the chooks anymore...
...Mitchell became another casualty of a failure that drives his country mad. More or less constantly since the first Cup in 1987, the All Blacks have been the world's outstanding team. In the years between Cups, they routinely trounce everyone. Yet that first Cup of '87 is the only one they've won. This makes them the Sergei Bubka of rugby - and don't they hate it. "The truth is, we do tend to fall over and we're sick of it," says All Black great Frank Bunce on the eve of the sixth World Cup, which begins...
...Does the Blacks' Cup history make them chokers? You could argue that, but it's a tough call. At Lansdowne Road, Ireland, in '91, they lost in the semis to a Wallabies team ignited by the mercurial David Campese. In Johannesburg in '95, a food-poisoning outbreak wrecked their preparation for the final, which was won by the hosts in extra time. At Twickenham in '99, France lived up to their somewhat spurious reputation for summoning bursts of inspired attack to overwhelm a Blacks team that had been cruising in their semi-final...
BACTERIAL Scientists have used sugar-eating microbes from the ocean to convert food into electricity. In theory, a cup of sugar could power a 60-watt bulb for 17 hours...
When the probe hits home, Rezai asks Stipp to perform a few tasks. Can he touch his index fingers together? Raise a cup to his lips? Sign his name? Stipp can do none of it. Then Rezai sends a few volts through the wire. Stipp's tremors calm. His index fingers meet. He signs the paper. "It's been a long time since I did that," he says wonderingly...