World Records

Ocean Dwelling Dynamos

The seven seas are teeming with life. The last true undiscovered country on Earth, the deepest depths of the ocean may yet hold immense lifeforms we’ve never seen. Thanks to the buoyancy water affords to those creatures that live in it, the oceans are home to the largest animals in the world.

The blue whale blows away any challengers by a large margin. Full-grown specimens can top out at upwards of 100 feet long and can weigh up to 150 tons. To give this animal’s size some perspective, its heart alone weighs an average of 1,300 pounds. That’s around the same weight as a full grown cow. What could possibly compete with that?

Well, if you prefer your gigantic water dwellers sans vertebrae, then you can always turn to the colossal squid. Best estimates put adult specimens between 40 and 45 feet long. That puts it at about half the size of a blue whale. Humpback whales should take note, though. They are about the same length, and are known to have scars that are believed to have been caused by the colossal squid.

A tad bit squishier, and a lot less deadly, is the lion’s mane jellyfish. The largest discovered was a mere 7.5 feet in diameter, but sported tentacles that measured an impressive 120 feet long. That’s longer than the blue whale up there. Despite it’s impressive size, its sting would be no more annoying than a mosquito bite to our other two seafaring giants.

Perfectly Aged Drinking Establishments

It seems like every town has the one local bar that’s been around “forever”. The funny thing is some bars really have been around forever. Today, we’re embarking on the ultimate global bar crawl.

Okay, so the oldest bar in the world doesn’t quite date back to prehistory, but you can still make it pretty far back. The oldest documented bar, appropriately established in Athlone, Ireland in 900 CE, is simply known as Sean’s Bar. I’m going to go ahead and guess that having a creative name back then just wasn’t as important as it is today.

Renovations in 1970 revealed building materials in the walls that dated back to the 10th century. The bar also has records of every owner of the bar dating back to the same time period. The most notable owner? Boy George. He owned it briefly back in 1987. The paperwork available was compelling enough for Guinness to grant them the record for World’s Oldest Bar.

If Ireland is a little farther than you are willing to travel for some well-aged whiskey, you can always hop on down to Louisiana. The oldest continuously operating bar in the US is located in New Orleans(again some would say appropriately.) Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop opened its doors sometime prior to 1772.

The infamous pirate Jean Lafitte is, somewhat obviously, rumored to have owned the watering hole at one point. There’s been no concrete evidence found to prove this belief, unfortunately. Pirates weren’t known to keep good records of their activities for some odd reason.

Plants Are Awesome, Too

Poor conversationalists, but very beautiful.

It occurred to me that I’ve been giving animals a whole lot of loving while completely ignoring the leafy side of the coin. Plants can be just as lovable as puppies and kittens! Well, mostly… Regardless, here’s to some mighty massive plants!

Trees are an obvious place to start when it comes to record size and staying power. These plus-size plants manage to reach their epic heights by growing over the course of dozens, if not hundreds of years. But just like with animals, there’s always overachievers.

The current oldest living tree is Old Tjikko in Switzerland. It was born approximately 9,550 years ago. To put this into perspective, it was born a mere fourteen years after Atlantis sank into the sea(according to legend.) As is often the case with the geriatric set, this tree’s a little on the short side. The ancient specimen stands a paltry sixteen feet tall.

Not surprisingly, the record for tallest living tree goes to Hyperion, a redwood tree in Northern California. It stands at an astounding height of 379 feet, equivalent to a 31-story building. Despite it’s amazing stature, Hyperion is believed to be between 700 and 800 years old.

So we have the oldest, and the tallest, but what about the largest overall?

That record goes to General Sherman, a 2,100 year-old Giant Sequoia that can be found appropriately enough in Sequoia National Park in California(what is it about that state, anyway?) The good General is a good hundred feet shorter than Hyperion, but is over 27 feet wide. The bark itself is believed to be up to two feet thick in places! The estimated weight for this behemoth? 4,000,000 pounds.

Taking Temperatures to the Extreme

Turn on the heat, would you? — Death Valley in wintertime

Humans like to complain… a lot. One of those things humans like to complain about most are temperature extremes. It’s the dead of winter, below freezing. We think of sitting out in the sun in eighty degree weather, sipping our iced tea. Then when it’s eighty degrees out we huddle in our air conditioned homes and dream of the wonderful cold of winter.

One thing we humans are even worse about is realizing that it could always be much, much worse. Take the heat, for example. You’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who would tell you that 100 degrees Fahrenheit isn’t so bad. Then again, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone alive the day it hit 134 degrees Fahrenheit in Furnace Creek, California.

That’s the hottest recorded temperature on earth, and it’s stood for a hundred years. Yes, it was in Death Valley. Why wouldn’t it be? From one extreme to another, let’s see how frigid things can get.

The coldest temperature was predictably recorded in Antarctica, and it was nearly the mirror opposite of the record high: -135.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Going out in 25 degree weather suddenly doesn’t seem so bad, does it? Well… okay, yeah it does. Man, I can’t wait for summer vacation in Death Valley!

On second thought, I can wait…

The Miracle of (Mass) Pregnancy

It’s no secret that some animals give birth to a half-dozen babies on a regular basis and do so without breaking a sweat. In fact, it’s been estimated that a breeding pair of cats and their descendants could produce as many as 420,000 kittens in as little as seven years, under ideal conditions.

Then there are the overachievers…

The world’s largest documented litter of kittens was born in 1970. The “lucky” mother gave birth to a gut-busting nineteen kittens. That of course leads to the inevitable and eternal cat/dog face-off. Who popped off more kids in one go?

No question, the dogs win. A Neopolitan Mastiff gave birth to a whopping twenty-four puppies in one go. The dog loses points for going with a C section, though. REAL bitches do it NATURALLY! (/Sarcasm) Then again, I bet most women would prefer the easy way out if it meant not having to shoot the equivalent of two NFL football teams out of their love canal.

Speaking of people, we got some catching up to do. The largest number of human babies born at one time is a measly nine. Only enough for a single baseball team. It’s happened a few times. None of the babies survived past a few days, unfortunately. I’m sure many of you first thought of Octomom having a successful batch of kids, and you’re right, she did. Someone beat her to that record, though.

Nkem Chukwu gave birth to eight babies in December of 1998, a full nine years before Nadya Suleman. One was born naturally, with the rest being delivered by C section. Each baby weighed only about two pounds. All but one survived and continue to thrive.

The real question is, how have the parents continued to survive?