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10 Weird Achievements in the Guinness Book of World Records
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Sunday, February 27, 2011
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1. Married 23 Times – Linda WolfeLinda Wolfe of Anderson, Indiana, has been married 23 times and holds the title of world’s most married person. Good for her. Marriage is a wonderful thing, right? You get to have a wedding. People get together and dance. We’d hate to be her sister, though. Being the bridesmaid and not the bride once is painful enough, but 23 times? Just grimace your way through the speeches, sister.
2. Watching Television for 72 Hours – Suresh Joachim
We’re pretty sure this record has been broken before. It’s just never been reported. Sri Lankan native Suresh Joachim outsmarted every couch potato in the world by having Guinness observe him as he watched 72 hours of TV straight – something most of us do in private. If he was smart, he avoided QVC completely, because he’d have to look away if he wanted to order that real funny one-a-day kitten quotation calendar. Cats! They’re just like us!
3. Sitting in Bathtub with 87 Rattlesnakes – Jackie Bibby
Ever been relaxing in your bathtub and hear a hiss and think, “OH MY GOD THIS BATHTUB IS FULL OF RATTLESNAKES!” only to realize that it was just one your lavender-scented Pier 1 candles going out? Well, Jackie Bibby doesn’t have that problem. The Texas-bred serpentine-lover loves getting nice and comfortable with our scale-bellied friends in the most intimate way. We’re pretty sure that the only reason the snakes are cool with it is because Bibby puts some John Tesh on the CD player before he slips in. That guy is a modern day snake-charmer.
4. Eating 200 Earthworms in 30 Seconds – C. Manoharan
Here’s something to think about: there’s a record for eating a bucketful of earthworms and there’s also a record for eating that bucketful quickly. That’s two separate records for eating worms. C. Manoharan of India holds the record for swallowing 200 earthworms in 30 seconds (completely unaided by ketchup or tartar sauce). He also tried to set a record by flossing two snakes through one nostril but failed – possibly because he realized how greedy he was being.
5. Holding Breath for 13 Minutes and 42.5 Seconds – Robert Foster
USA! USA! American purebred Robert Foster holds the record for longest breath-holding at a whopping 13 minutes and 42.5 seconds. And to make this even more impressive, he did it back in 1959 way before we had all these newfangled breath-extension technologies. It just goes to show you, America is really good at a lot of things. No one can beat us when it comes to controlling our breath. Just look at Kenny G.
6. 75 Beer Glasses Balanced on Chin – Ashrita Furman
If you’re ever eager to get kicked out of a bar super fast, tell the manager that you’re world-record holder Ashrita Furman. After he gives you 75 pint beer glasses, make a huge speech about how you managed to do this for 10 seconds in New York almost ten years ago, but tonight you’re going to do it for 11… then fail miserably. Just shatter those glasses with zero impunity. If there’s anyone there who reads every edition of the Guinness Book of World Records, they’ll eat it up. (Not the glass, the act. Unless, of course, they hold the record for eating glass.) Furman is known for holding multiple records. Although he has set 328 official world records since 1979, he currently holds only 126.
7. 124 One-Finger Push-Ups – Paul Henry Allen Lynch
My dad’s a lawyer. What’s your dad do?He goes from town to town doing one-finger push-ups.Wow, that’s much cooler than what my dad does. Your dad makes my dad look like a total chump.
8. Stretching Skin to 6.25 inches – Garry Turner
Garry Turner, of the Lincolnshire Turners, went on national television and stretched the skin of his stomach to 6.25 inches for the sole purpose of showing the world he could do it. One can only imagine that there were a lot of people watching at home that were holding onto their stomachs as they watched, either because they wanted to throw up or because they quietly suspected they could probably beat that record.
9. 19 People Inside a Soap Bubble – Sam Heath
This country has been suffering ever since the real-estate bubble burst. But that doesn’t mean that all bubbles are bad, right? How can you hold anything against a giant soap bubble? That’s right, you can’t! Sam Heath set the world record for most people inside a single bubble when he used his giant bubble wand to encapsulate 19 people inside. Witnesses say Sam then cast a magical spell, the bubble popped, and its inhabitants disappeared. Just kidding. It popped, everyone clapped politely, and people talked about it for maybe three days.
10. Squirting Milk from the Eye – Mike Moraal
If you want to be like Mike Moraal of British Columbia and squirt milk from your eye 2.6 meters, you’ll have your name in the ol’ G-books for… probably forever. But you should never tell your date that you did it, and you should definitely never try to do it while you’re dining at the Olive Garden. Wait until you get home at least. No one likes eye milk on their never-ending salad bowl.
10 Ancient Methods of Birth Control
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Tuesday, February 1, 2011
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This year marked the fiftieth anniversary of the birth control pill, which many considered to have empowered women and sparked the sexual revolution. But as this list will show, women have had some control over their reproductive rights for millennia, although some of these ancient birth control methods were, admittedly, more terrifying than most of the methods in use today.
To be included on this list, the birth control had to be at least plausibly effective to some degree. Records exist of women in ancient Rome and Greece relying on dances and amulets to prevent pregnancy, and we can safely assume that those probably didn’t do much. At the risk of stirring up controversy, I’ve listed both contraceptives—which prevent sperm from fertilizing egg—and abortifacients, which induce abortion. For the sake of interest, I’ve focused on methods that would be unusual today, and not on methods that are still regularly practiced—like abstinence, coitus interruptus, or fertility awareness—to similar effect now as a few centuries ago. These items are in no particular order.
Lemons
Citric acid is said to have spermicidal properties, and women used to soak sponges in lemon juice before inserting them vaginally. Mentioned in the Talmud, this was a preferred method of birth control in ancient Jewish communities. The sponge itself would act as a pessary—a physical barrier between the sperm and the cervix. The great womanizer Casanova was said to have inserted the rind of half a lemon into his lovers as a primitive cervical cap or diaphragm, the residual lemon juice serving to annihilate the sperm. Lemon- and lime-juice douches following coitus were also recommended as a form of birth control, but this method was likely less effective, since sperm can enter the cervix—and hence out of reach of any douching—within minutes of ejaculation. Incidentally, some alternative medicine practitioners today suggest that megadoses of vitamin C (6 to 10 g a day) could induce an abortion in women under 4 weeks of pregnancy, but there’s no evidence that citrus fruits were used in this way in ancient times.
Queen Anne’s Lace
Queen Anne’s Lace is also known as wild carrot, and its seeds have long been used as a contraceptive—Hippocrates described this use over two millennia ago. The seeds block progesterone synthesis, disrupting implantation and are most effective as emergency contraception within eight hours of exposure to sperm—a sort of “morning after” form of birth control. Taking Queen Anne’s Lace led to no or mild side effects (like a bit of constipation), and women who stopped taking it could conceive and rear a healthy child. The only danger, it seemed, was confusing the plant with similar-looking but potentially deadly poison hemlock and water hemlock.
Pennyroyal
Pennyroyal is a plant in the mint genus and has a fragrance similar to that of spearmint. The ancient Greeks and Romans used it as a cooking herb and a flavoring ingredient in wine. They also drank pennyroyal tea to induce menstruation and abortion—1st-century physician Dioscorides records this use of pennyroyal in his massive five-volume encyclopedia on herbal medicine. Too much of the tea could be highly toxic, however, leading to multiple organ failure.
Blue Cohosh
Blue cohosh, traditionally used for birth control by Native Americans, contains at least two abortifacient substances: one mimics oxytocin, a hormone produced during childbirth that stimulates the uterus to contract, and a substance unique to blue cohosh, caulosaponin, also results in uterine contractions. Midwives today may use blue cohosh in the last month of pregnancy to tone the uterus in preparation for labour. The completely unrelated but similarly named black cohosh also has estrogenic and abortifacient properties and was often combined with blue cohosh to terminate a pregnancy.
Dong Quai
Dong quai, also known as Chinese angelica, has long been known for its powerful effects on a woman’s cycle. Women drank a tonic brewed with dong quai roots to help regulate irregular menstruation, alleviate menstrual cramps and help the body regenerate after menstruation. Taken during early pregnancy, however, dong quai had the effect of causing uterine contractions and inducing abortion. European and American species of angelica have similar properties but were not as widely used.
Common Rue
Rue, a blue-green herb with feathery leaves, is grown as an ornamental plant and is favored by gardeners for its hardiness. It is rather bitter but can be used in small amounts as a flavoring ingredient in cooking. Soranus, a gynecologist from 2nd-century Greece, described its use as a potent abortifacient, and women in Latin America have traditionally eaten rue in salads as a contraceptive and drunk rue tea as emergency contraception or to induce abortion. Ingested regularly, rue decreases blood flow to the endometrium, essentially making the lining of the uterus non-nutritive to a fertilized egg.
Cotton
In the ancient medical manuscript the Ebers Papyrus (1550 BCE), women were advised to grind dates, acacia tree bark, and honey together into a paste, apply this mixture to seed wool, and insert the seed wool vaginally for use as a pessary. Granted, it was what was in the cotton rather than the cotton itself that promoted its effectiveness as birth control—acacia ferments into lactic acid, a well-known spermicide—but the seed wool did serve as a physical barrier between ejaculate and cervix. Interestingly, though, women during the times of American slavery would chew on the bark of cotton root to prevent pregnancy. Cotton root bark contains substances that interfere with the corpus luteum, which is the hole left in the ovary when ovulation occurs. The corpus luteum secretes progesterone to prepare the uterus for implantation of a fertilized egg. By impeding the corpus luteum’s actions, cotton root bark halts progesterone production, without which a pregnancy can’t continue.
Papaya
In South Asia and Southeast Asia, unripe papaya was used to prevent or terminate pregnancy. Once papaya is ripe, though, it loses the phytochemicals that interfere with progesterone and thus its contraceptive and abortifacient properties. The seeds of the papaya could actually serve as an effective male contraceptive. Papaya seeds, taken daily, could cut a man’s sperm count to zero and was safe for long-term use. Best of all, the sterility was reversible: if the man stopped taking the seeds, his sperm count would return to normal.
Silphium
Silphium was a member of the fennel family that grew on the shores of Cyrenaica (in present-day Libya). It was so important to the Cyrenean economy that it graced that ancient city’s coins. Silphium had a host of uses in cooking and in medicine, and Pliny the Elder recorded the herb’s use as a contraceptive. It was reportedly effective for contraception when taken once a month as a tincture. It could also be used as emergency birth control, either orally or vaginally, as an abortifacient. By the second century CE, the plant had gone extinct, likely because of over harvesting.
Mercury
Civilizations the world over, from the ancient Assyrians and Egyptians to the Greeks, were fascinated by mercury and were convinced that it had medicinal value and special curative properties, using it to treat everything from skin rashes to syphilis. In ancient China, women were advised to drink hot mercury to prevent pregnancy. It was likely pretty effective at convincing a woman’s body that she wasn’t fit to carry a child, leading to miscarriage, so in that sense, it worked as a contraceptive. However, as we know today, mercury is enormously toxic, causing kidney and lung failure, as well as brain damage and death. At that point, pregnancy would probably be the least of your worries.
