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Whether or not you’re in a relationship, it’s still pretty easy to get swept away in the romantic spirit of Valentine’s Day. In honor of the holiday, let’s take a look at some of the most romantic world records ever achieved.
I don’t know about you guys, but I would need a serious Chap Stick infusion after kissing someone for 46 and a half hours. The couple, Ekkachai and Laksana Tiranarat, was part of a contest held in Thailand in 2011, which led to seven couples breaking the existing record of 32 hours that was set back in 2009.
It takes two people who can both hold their breath for a long while to break this record, which is why it is so impressive that Italians Michele Fucarino and Elisa Lazzarini were able to hold their breath while kissing for 3 minutes and 24 seconds.
While the Italian couple may have set the record for longest underwater kiss without breathing, Antonio de la Rosa Suarez holds a different but equally impressive record for kissing underwater. In his case, two women took turns kissing him while passing air to him. He stayed down there for 7 minutes, which seems like a relatively short record given that he was allowed to breathe during the process. Maybe one of you guys could take a crack at this one.
Love Sharon Stone? Not as much as Joni Rimm apparently. Rimm actually shelled out $50,000 for one kiss with the actress, who offered up a lick-smacking session as part of a charity auction supporting Project Angel Foods, a charity dedicated to providing free meals for people with HIV and AIDS.
As if having a giant wedding ceremony wasn’t romantic enough, the fact that 34 couples opted to exchange wedding vows underwater on Valentine’s Day makes this one sweet occasion, even if kissing the bride 33 feet underwater isn’t exactly an easy proposition.
It seems strange, but the world’s longest hug was actually almost a full day shorter than the world’s longest kiss. At only 24 hours and 33 minutes, it seems that this record, held by Ron O’Neil and Theresa Kerr, is just begging to be broken –so if you want to get in the book, better start locking arms now.
Is giving a cow whiskey the secret to ensuring it will live a long healthy life? It might sound silly, but if Bertha, the world’s longest-living cow had a few shots every year before staring in the St. Patrick’s Day parade, then who knows, maybe it helps. Interestingly, Bertha also holds the record for most calves birthed by one cow.
Read about more long-living animals over at Mental Floss.
Wanna get your MMO romance on and help set a new world record? Well, if you happen to play RIFT, then get married in the game on Valentine’s Day and you can help them set a Guinness record for most virtual marriages in a 24 hour period. Personally, the fact that you can incorporate a corgi into your virtual wedding is a huge selling point for me.
Link Via Geekosystem
A newly-discovered frog, Paedophryne amauensis, is not only the smallest frog species, but the smallest vertebrate ever found. The frogs were found in the rain forest of Papua New Guinea, living among fallen leaves. They are 7 millimeters long, about a quarter of an inch.
They are well camouflaged among leaves on the forest floor, and have evolved calls resembling those of insects, making them hard to spot.
“The New Guinea forests are incredibly loud at night; and we were trying to record frog calls in the forest, and we were curious as to what these other sounds were,” said research leader Chris Austin from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, US.
“So we triangulated to where these calls were coming from, and looked through the leaf litter.
“It was night, these things are incredibly small; so what we did after several frustrating attempts was to grab a whole handful of leaf litter and throw it inside a clear plastic bag.
“When we did so, we saw these incredibly tiny frogs hopping around,” he told BBC News.
The frog pictured is sitting on a dime. Link -via Fark
(Image credit: Rittmeyer et al)
Jimmy
crack corn, that's a big rice cracker! A Japanese team (really) called
The World's Largest Rice Cracker Committee in Kioroshi, Tokyo, has broken
the world's record for baking the largest rice cracker:
"We made it. It's sweet revenge," he said, after a failed attempt to get into the record books last month with a cracker that fell three centimetres short of their target.
The group started making dough with 33 pounds of powdered rice on Tuesday and baked it for about an hour on Wednesday over an open fire, turning the giant snack every few minutes.
I don't know if he can balance a checkbook, but Tai Star sure can balance a stack of coins ... make that 600 quarters, 501 dimes, 313 nickels, 1,699 pennies, 5 foreign coins - a total of 3,118 coins - on a single dime. It took 7 hours to build the record-setting structure.
Tai explains in the Daily Mail:
‘It is on the very corner for a few reasons: to make it easy to see that it is on one dime and I think the structure of the table is most sturdy there – plus I just like precarious balance.’
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Geekologie
If you’re going to let someone make the world’s largest pumpkin carving, you might as well make sure he’s an amazing artist. That’s why it’s so great that Artist Ray Villafane was given the honor of carving the record breaking pumpkin this year. Enjoy more pics at the link.
Link Via The Daily What
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The game Labyrinth looks really difficult, but Alon Moss of New York completed it -with two balls- in world record time, just 2 minutes, 37.8 seconds. Link -Thanks, David!
Lutz Eichholz has accomplished the impossible. He previously set the world record for riding a unicycle down a line of beer bottles (a highly competitive event) at 7.99 meters. Now he’s smashed that record by riding 8.93 meters at the Unicycle Israel Convention in Tel Aviv.
Link -via That’s Nerdalicious!
On Monday, Glen Suter did something most men only get to dream about: driving a couch faster than anyone else ever has. He set a Guinness World Record by driving a couch equipped with a 1400 cc motorcycle engine up to 101 miles per hour. This shattered the previous record of 92 miles per hour.
Link -via Jalopnik | Previously: World’s Fastest Furniture
Ordinarily, world record attempts at group activities seem boring to me, but the world’s largest lightsaber fight, now that sounds pretty darn fun! The most recent attempt to break the record took place at Washington Square Park, New York City last Saturday. While the record hasn’t been confirmed yet, there were at least 1000 people in attendance, so it sounds like the battle has a good chance of making it into the record books.
Link Via The Mary Sue Image Via Ennuipoet [Flickr]
Comments Off Fizz Girl is the world’s shortest cat and while the video doesn’t show nearly enough of her corgi-like proportions, she is simply adorable.
Via BuzzFeed
Stewie is a Maine Coon cat, but I suspect there may be a bit of lynx or bobcat in his ancestral lineage, dontcha think? In August of 2010, Stewie was measured at 48.5 inches long, good enough for a world record. His owners are Americans Robin Hendrickson and Erik Brandsness. -via Buzzfeed
There is a light bulb at the fire station in Livermore, California that has been burning for 110 years. It has only been turned off for short periods, but unlike every other incandescent bulb, the filament has not burned out. The bulb burned at 60 watts when it was first used in 1901, and now is a 4-watt night light. Today, this light bulb is available to everyone on a round-the-clock webcam that updates with a new photo every 30 seconds (although it’s kind of hard to tell). Link -via a comment at reddit
Previously: Livermore’s Centennial Light
The new Guinness World Record Book is coming out next week. One of the new record holders is Harbor, a Black and Tan Coonhound, who has the longest ears of any living dog. His left ear measures 12.25 inches (31.1 cm) and his right ear is 13.5 inches (34.3 cm) long! -via the Presurfer
To be 115 when the best life expectancy rates in history hover around 78 (for a person born in 2009!) is no small feat. Besse Cooper, currently the world’s oldest person, just celebrated her 115th birthday in Georgia state. It was a smallish affair, with about 15-20 friends and family.
Her daughter-in-law Edith Cooper said the group gathered at a Monroe nursing home, where Besse Cooper enjoyed two small slivers of her birthday cake and nodded with approval as musician Mike Cronic sang “Tennessee Waltz.”
Cooper was born in Tennessee and moved to Georgia during World War I to find work as a teacher. She has 12 grandchildren and more than a dozen great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. Her husband, Luther, died in 1963.
Cooper was declared the world’s oldest in January. In May, Guinness learned that Maria Gomes Valentin of Brazil was 48 days older. Valentin died June 21.
Link|Image: AP Photo/David Goldman
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While this picture is already enough for most people to realize this is something no one should ever do,the fact that there is actually a record for most rattlesnakes held in the mouth at one time is just plain wrong. For more bizarre records, check out this great article over at All That is Interesting.
Comments Off Reknowned distance swimmer Diana Nyad {wiki} is almost 62 years old. But she is swimming today, off the coast of Cuba, heading to Key West. She entered the water just before Sunset last night. This time, instead of a shark cage, she will be surrounded by an electronic shark deterrent. The swim, if successful, is expected to take 60 hours. Link
CNN has an interactive map with which you can follow her progress. Link
Update: Nyad abandoned her attempt about halfway through. Link
Oddee has a great article featuring the World’s Youngest record holders for a variety of titles. While they range from shocking (the world’s youngest grandmother) to fascinating (the world’s youngest CEO). Perhaps the cutest though is the world’s youngest surfer:
Jaylan Amor is only two years old, but is already surfing the waves outside of Brisbane, Australia, and has secured multiple endorsements from surf shops. To catch a wave, his dad paddles him out to sea, then the two year old hops and rides the waves back into shore. Mr Amor isn’t worried if Jaylan falls, as the tike just swims back to his board and waits for daddy to help him back up.
Read about the rest at the link.
This weekend, the Antiques Roadshow crew sent a Tulsa man home as a record-breaker and new retiree. Though his identity is being withheld, the most expensive item ever appraised in the show’s 16-year history, worth $1 – 1.5M, has been revealed as a set of five Chinese cups carved of rhinoceros horn. Before carrying them into the Tulsa Convention Center, the man said he’d owned the cups since the 1970s.
“As each one came out of the box my jaw started to drop a little more and that of at my colleagues eyes and their jaws dropped as well,” says Mason.
“I was hoping he wasn’t going to collapse but he said that he was glad that he didn’t need his inhaler,” says Mason.
“You clearly could even see, in the tape that I was watching, the color rush over his face,” says producer Bemko.
Mason says the million dollar cups were given as gifts to wealthy people for special occasions in the late 17th to early 18th centuries.
During that time it was thought that rhinoceros horn had special powers. What makes them so valuable today is china’s power and stance in the world.
“We had not had a million dollar find until last season we found some jade in Raleigh now Tulsa, you are the top dogs now,” says the show’s host Mark Walberg.
“Top Dogs” is sure to be a title Tulsans are proud to hold.
Its safe to say none of the Roadshow crew knew they would be breaking records in Green Country.
“I certainly wasn’t expecting this in Tulsa, Oklahoma,” says Mason. “Although Tulsa is a wonderful place and now it’s even more wonderful as far as I’m concerned.”
“I am no longer surprise by what I’m going to find anywhere, but yeah okay a little surprised to find it in Tulsa, but delighted,” says Bemko.
The last time the Roadshow was in Tulsa was nearly ten years ago, hopefully with the big find this weekend they will visit us a little sooner.
Producers tell us Tulsa’s record breaking show will air on PBS some time early next year.
Link | Image: © Jeff Dunn, WGBH 2011
In 1939, Adolf Hitler commissioned the Friedrich Krupp A.G. company of Essen, Germany to build a gun that would breach the French Maginot line. They responded with the “Gustav Gun,” the largest gun ever built.
Named after the head of the Krupp family, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, the Gustav Gun weighed in at a massive 1344 tons, so heavy that even though it was attached to a rail car, it still had to be disassembled before moving so as to not destroy the twin set of tracks as it passed over. This 4-story behemoth stood 20 feet wide and 140 feet long. Its 500 man crew, commanded by a Major-General (that’s two stars), needed nearly three full days (54 hours, to be exact) to set it up and prep for firing. But when it did fire, whoowhee, hold on to your hat.
The description of this gun’s destructiveness is at Gizmodo. Link -via the Presurfer
(Image credit: American Rifleman, February 1998)
I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to give birth to a 16 pound baby, even if it was through a caesarian. On top of every thing else, you’d have to worry about trying to find clothes for him. Janet Johnson, who just gave birth to a son that might be the world’s largest said she’s going to have to return all the clothes she already bought for him since he’s already the size of most 3 month olds.
How do you turn a small space into a huge cash cow? Fill it with the most claustrophobic living quarters imaginable, call its lack of width a feature, then rent it out to artists as a living/workspace. That’s just what architect Jakub Szczesny and team are doing with the skinny space between an old tenement block and a tower block in Warsaw, Poland. The design allows for a bedroom, lounge, bathroom and kitchen within the tiny space, all accessible by ladder. Read more about to Warsaw design and other skinny houses on Daily Mail. Link
via Dvice
It seems every few years someone has topped this record again, but if you think hamburgers are an American specialty, then you’ll be happy to know the U.S. reclaimed the title from the Canadians recently. The burger is 777 pounds and contains 590 pounds of beef. Obesity epidemic, eat your heart out…wait.
Move over, Edward Nino Hernandez, there’s a new smallest man in town. Junrey Balawing of Zamboanga del Norte, who turns 18 today, measures only 24 inches from head to foot lying down and just over 23 inches standing up.
Balawing, the eldest of four siblings, is not only the shortest living man, but the shortest living man in history, the Guinness World Records said.
No monetary prize will be given for Balawing and all other Guinness world record holders.
Balawing unseated Khagendra Thapa Magar of Nepal who is 26.4 inches tall.
Municipal administrator Allan Selda earlier said the local government is preparing to celebrate for the record with balloons and a cake for Balawing.
Link | Image: AP
"Aw, what a cute toddler," you may think, but you’d be wrong. That’s Junrey Balawing, who is going to be crowned the unenviable title of World’s Smallest Man when he turns 18 this June:
MEET Junrey Balawing, the Filipino who is about to become the world’s smallest man – and a huge star.
At just 22 INCHES high, the 17-year-old is tinier than a one-year-old.When he turns 18 on June 12, he will take the title – smashing five inches off the current record.
The titchy teen has not grown since his first birthday, struggles to walk and cannot stand up for long.
But he beams with pride when talking about his likely world record.
He said: "If I were the smallest man in the world, it would be very cool."
Rhodri Phillips of The Sun has the story: Link
Video clip after the jump: more …
Photo: James Balog
The tree in the photo above is pretty tall – so tall, in fact, that it used to be the tallest known tree in the world. Until people found other trees that are even taller. NPR’s Robert Krulwich has a very neat post about the discovery of the world’s tallest tree: Link
See also: 10 Most Magnificent Trees in the World
Purdue University holds an annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contest for students from colleges all over. A world record was set this year, as the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers and Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers team of 17 students built a contraption that took 244 steps to water a flower. That beat the existing world record of 230 steps. Read all about it at Popular Mechanics. Link -via Boing Boing
To promote the new Internet Explorer 9, Soap Creative developed a Pac-Man game that involves thousands of user-submitted screens, and could take years to play. Link to story. Link to game. -via Simply Left Behind
An 11-month-old Tibetan mastiff named Hong Dong (Big Splash) broke the record for dog prices, going to a new home in China for 10 million RMB, which is £945,000 or about $1.5 million US.
Tibetan Mastiffs are huge and fierce guard dogs that have stood watch over nomad camps and monasteries on the Tibetan plateau for centuries.
They are thought to be one of the world’s oldest breeds, and legend has it that both Genghis Khan and Lord Buddha kept them.
More recently, however, they have become highly-prized status symbols for China’s new rich. The dogs are thought to be a pure “Chinese” breed and they are rarely found outside Tibet, giving them an exclusivity that other breeds cannot match.
Accordingly, prices have risen from around 5,000 yuan a puppy five years ago to the hundreds of thousands and even millions.
Hong Dong’s new owner will command high stud fees, as much as 100,000 RMB and may earn his money back soon. Link -via The Daily What
