As soccer fans we're shin guard deep in World Cup action, so this episode of scienceTASTIC has some extra international flair. We've picked our teams to back, and not only laid down a cash bet on the tournament winner, but also decided to get stories from our drafted countries. Mike takes us to Australia where a rather dry lake is now brimming with life. Mark introduces us to a lovely German man who can increase your World Cup enjoyment by filtering out the sound of vuvuzelas. Joe knows that New Zealand is not only celebrating its 1-1 draw with Italy, but also their carnivorous ocean sponge that has cracked the top ten new species of the year. The globe trotting continues with a researcher from Denmark who is probing for life below the ocean floor, a study from the Netherlands that shows coffee and tea may protect against heart disease, and a team of Spanish researchers that have recorded sprites and elves in storms. We hate to ruin your clean sheet, but this episode is a GOOOOooooaal!

What we didn't get to: Australian elephant seals collecting data from the ocean around Antarctica, a Portugese scientist who developed software to measure soccer success, and German study that shows the whiskers of harbor seals are as good at detecting fish as echolocation.

(Links to the stories we cover are always available at www.sciencetastic.net.)