607 can crow about setting animal-nose record 'It really brought the community together'
MIKE HOUSEHOLDER,
Associated Press
9 Mar 2012
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — A comedy festival in Michigan is pecking away at chicken-themed world records. In 2011, organizers of Gilda's LaughFest in Grand Rapids set a Guinness World Record for the most rubber chickens tossed — 925. On Thursday evening, 607 revelers packed a downtown city block and donned chicken beaks, clucking their way to the record for the most people wearing animal noses at a single venue. Assuming, that is, the folks at Guinness World Records agree.
Organizers said those who braved the 30-degree temperatures wore the beaks for 11 minutes and 39 seconds, eclipsing the 10 minutes mandated by Guinness. Since there isn't a current world record in the animal nose-wearing category, if the paperwork checks out, then those who busted a move to the Chicken Dance have set the mark.
"What an event. It really brought the community together. It was incredible," Sharon Irwin, a 54-year-old legal secretary from nearby Kentwood, said as she was leaving the fenced-in area known as "the coop."
The event served as the official kickoff to Gilda's LaughFest, which runs through March 18 and is sponsored by the nonprofit Gilda's Club Grand Rapids. The festival honors the memory of comedian Gilda Radner, who died in 1989. This year's headliners include comedians Whoopi Goldberg, Martin Short and Kevin Nealon. Radner's brother, Michael, was on hand for Thursday's beak-wearing record. "It's a wonderful legacy of my sister, and I'm so happy to be a part of it," he said.
Gilda's LaughFest began last year, and more than 55,000 people from 25 states and Canada attended. All proceeds from the festival benefit the cancer, grief and other support programs that are offered through Gilda's Club Grand Rapids.
Giant 45ft-long paper airplane takes to the skies above Arizona
Paper airplanes may generally be the preserve of bored school kids, but a team of designers and aviators have taken things one step further. A giant 363kg paper plane, called the Arturo Desert Eagle, was lifted around 4,000 feet into the air before being released and reaching speeds of around 98 miles per hour.
Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson was behind the plane, which had a wingspan of 24 feet, with the project originally taking off back in January. It began with a joint paper plane competition between the museum and a local newspaper aimed at six to 14-year-olds. Competition winner, Arturo Valdenegro, 12, had the chance to help with the design.
However, it seems that as is so often the case, it was the big kids who ended up having most of the fun. Yvonne Morris, executive director of the museum and the Arizona Aerospace Foundation, said after the flight: 'The arresting visual of the paper airplane in flight rekindled the childhood creativity in all of us.' She added that the project was 'part of our larger effort to inspire America's youth and spark a passion for aviation and engineering in the next generation'.
Officials claim that the plane flew for six seconds on its own before returning to the ground.
'King of Wasps' found in Indonesia Two-and-a-half inch monster has jaws longer than its legs
Rob Waugh
23 March 2012
A new species of wasp discovered on the Indonesian island Sulawesi is two-and-a-half inches long, and has jaws so vast that its discoverer admits, 'I don't know how it can walk.' Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, says ‘Its jaws are so large that they wrap up either side of the head when closed. When the jaws are open they are actually longer than the male’s front legs.'
Kimsey discovered the warrior wasp on the Mekongga Mountains in southeastern Sulawesi. She says its enormous size and ferocity makes it like 'the Komodo Dragon of wasps'. ‘I’m going to name it Garuda, after the national symbol of Indonesia,’ Kimsey said.
Garuda - known as 'King of Birds' - is a powerful mythical warrior that’s part human and part eagle, boasts a large wingspan, martial prowess and breakneck speed.
‘The first time I saw the wasp I knew it was something really unusual,’ said Kimsey. ‘I had never seen anything like this species of Dalara. We don’t know anything about the biology of these wasps. They are only known from southwestern Sulawesi. The large jaws probably play a role in defense and reproduction,' she said.
‘In another species in the genus the males hang out in the nest entrance. This serves to protect the nest from parasites and nest robbing, and for this he exacts payment from the female by mating with her every time she returns to the nest. So it's a way of guaranteeing paternity. Additionally, the jaws are big enough to wrap around the female;s thorax and hold her during mating.’
Raisin the bar: Team of bakers serve up world's largest hot cross bun
A team of bakers have battered their way into the world record books after creating the world's biggest hot cross bun. It took a group of five dough punchers to complete the bread and butter challenge and set a new Guinness World Record.
The traditional Easter treat, which contained over 145lbs of flour, weighed a whopping 26 stone and measured a gigantic 7ft 10ins when completed. It was equivalent in weight to that of 2300 regular-sized hot cross buns.
The event took place at Greenhalghs bakery in Bolton, Greater Manchester, where it took ten people to carry the baked treat into a custom-made oven. Manager Stuart Hartlebury, 43, said: 'We made it in the traditional way, using all the traditional ingredients but the hard part was rolling it out. Making the bun was most enjoyable and to achieve the world record is quite an achievement. I feel fortunate to have participated in making it and I'm very proud. It has been a big effort from everyone at Greenhalghs bakery, so we're all really pleased.'
The attempt was in celebration of a number of Easter events taking place at reserves run by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds across the country this Easter. A RSPB spokesman said: 'We weren't sure we would be able to pull it off, but we've gone and broken the world record. From the piece I've tried it tastes amazing, but it seems we will have quite a lot of washing up to do.'
It beat a previous record set by a bakery in South Africa in April 2009.
Seven-cow doner sets new record A one-tonne doner kebab made from seven cows has been crowned the largest on the planet by Guinness World Record officials in Turkey.
Officials confirmed that the gigantic meat mountain, weighing a whopping 1,198kg and measuring 2.5m, was a new world record on Tuesday. It took ten cooks to create the gut buster, which had to be held in place by a crane while it was officially measured. The hefty kebab smashed a previous record set in Australia in 2004, weighing almost double the size.
Working from a special set of scaffolding, the collection of cooks later cut the meat feast up into pieces for spectators at Ankara Shopping Fest in Genclik Park, Ankara. The modern version of the doner kebab was invented by Mahmut Aygun in 1971, who first came up with the idea of putting the meat inside a pitta bread.
Cod and chips world record battered in Doncaster Giant portion of cod Staff at the Doncaster chip shop used garden forks to lift the cod out of the fryer
29th August 2012
bbc.co.uk
A Doncaster chip shop claims to have broken the world record for the largest portion of cod and chips. Scawsby Fisheries served 33lb (13.6kg) of battered cod alongside 64lb (27.2kg) of chips. Martin Bilby, from Scawsby Fisheries, said they had beaten the old record of 77lb (34.9kg) by 20lb (9.1kg). That was set by a restaurant in Boston in the US.
Officials from Doncaster Council's weights and measures department weighed the cod and chips. Mr Bilby said the proof would now be presented to Guinness World Records. "We lifted the fish out of the fryer using two clean garden forks," he said. "It took some getting out, to be honest. Two of us lifted it out and two people held the tray it went on."
The pan to fry the cod was borrowed from the Wensleydale Heifer restaurant in West Witton in the Yorkshire Dales, which broke the world record for the largest portion of halibut and chips in July 2011. Mr Bilby said the fish would make 40-50 portions but if it was sold as one piece, it would cost about £300.
The cod was sourced by the chip shop's fish supplier, Warner's, and was caught by the H P Grandi fishing fleet in Iceland.
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