The fine folks at Guinness World Records measure and record everything, even the things no sane person would wish the world to repeat. In these past 10 years, we've seen the highest death toll in a terrorist attack (Sept. 11), the deadliest disease (AIDS) and the warmest year on record (2005). Sadly, these count as world records.
But let's not get down on the '00s, even if it was a time in which Nadya "Octomom" Suleman earned a place in the Guinness ledger for the most children surviving from a single birth. This decade has had more than its share of notable records that all of us can be proud of.
Ours is a time that has produced the first map of the human genome, the first International Space Station and the first partial face transplant.
Multimillionaire Dennis Tito became the world's first space tourist. A 66-year-old woman became the world's oldest mother. And the Internet turned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg into the United States' first 23-year-old billionaire, just four years after founding the social networking site, now 350 million members strong, from his Harvard dorm room.
As we close the calendar on 2009, Guinness has issued the Top 100 Records of the Decade, and it's letting the public vote on its favorite achievements in 10 categories. Here's a look at some of the achievements that stand out, at least to me. Check out the full list and vote on the Guinness Web site.
1. Human Body -- When he tipped the scale at 1,235 pounds in 2006, Manuel Uribe Garza of Mexico vowed to reclaim his life. From the bed he was too obese to rise from, he married his second wife, a devoted woman who helped him as he committed himself to the Zone diet and healthful living. Garza is now down to a svelte 660 pounds, but he's got a long way to go if he's going to snatch Michael Hebranko's record for the most weight lost in a lifetime.
Hebranko has been ballooning up and down for more than 20 years. In 1988, he hit 904 pounds, sought medical help and fought his way down to 198. By June 1999, he peaked again at 1,100 and needed to be fork-lifted from his home. Guinness reports that medical records indicate this man has lost roughly 5,000 pounds over his lifetime.
AP
Manuel Uribe Garza weighed more than 1,200 pounds in 2006.
Other Candidates for Greatest Human Body Achievement -- John "Prince Albert" Lynch amassed 241 piercings (including 151 in his head and neck) to become the most pricked man ever. And Sultan Kösen emerged from eastern Turkey as the first man in nearly two decades to measure over 8 feet tall. (Vote)
2. Living Planet -- In 2006, Chris Atkins and Michael Taylor found a 379-foot sky-scraping tree in California's Redwood National Forest. It's more than 2.5 times taller than the Statue of Liberty, and might have been even taller, if not for some woodpecker damage at the very top. Want to see it in person? Tough luck. Foresters aren't giving away the exact location for fear that sightseers might upset the local ecosystem.
Pollution and global warming might be seen as big contributors to many of the candidates in this category. They include a Luxembourg-sized iceberg, and "Lonesome George," the last known Abingdon Island giant tortoise. Someone, please find this guy a girlfriend. The Charles Darwin Research Station is offering a $10,000 reward to a would-be matchmaker for the world's most endangered reptile. (Vote)
3. Science and Technology -- It's hard to think of research that will have more potential impact than the Human Genome Project. Scientists from 20 institutions in six countries worked for more than a decade to unravel the most basic building block of life. Genetic information from this biological map -- presented to the public in 2001 -- has helped doctors fight everything from breast cancer and cardiovascular disease to tobacco addiction.
The map of the human genome has proven to be so revealing, the Bush administration introduced a law prohibiting insurance companies and employers from discriminating against anyone based on his or her genetic data.
Other Candidates -- The iPhone makes the Guinness Top 100 Records of the Decade, not because it cures diseases and saves lives, but because it's the best-selling smart phone -- and, we assume, because it's really, really cool. (Vote)
4. Stunts -- If the Guinness book is famous for one thing, it's all the questionably sane people who do outrageous things, like Jackie Bibby, who holds the record for most rattlesnakes held in a person's mouth. He first set the record in May 2001, when he inserted eight live rattlers in his pie hole for 12.5 seconds. Why eight? The best answer is, "Why not." No one had attempted to gum even one rattler. Bibby has subsequently set a record for sitting in a tub with 87 snakes, and, before the decade ended, he figured out a way to sandwich 11 slithering reptiles between his lips.
Other Great Stunts -- Stuntman Danny Higginbottom thought he had become the undisputed "top of the flops" after diving from 29 feet into an inflatable kiddie pool with just 12 inches of water. He broke his own record twice for good measure. Then, along came Darren Taylor, a former DJ, who went on to dive from the height of 33 feet, 10 inches into the same sort of kiddie pool. Taylor -- now known as "Professor Splash" -- has since topped himself several times. (Vote)
5. Epic Achievements -- Forget Falcon Heene. The person who most deserves to be remembered as "Balloon Boy" is the late Steve Fossett. The millionaire sportsman held multiple records leading up to his fatal 2007 plane accident. On July 2, 2002, after several failed attempts, he became the first person in a dirigible to circumnavigate the world.
The 13-day, 8-hour, 33-minute flight is also Guinness-certified as the longest duration flown solo in a balloon, the fastest Indian Ocean crossing under sail and the first solo circumnavigation by aircraft without refueling.
Sphere.com
Buck Wolf and Sultan Kösen meet in New York.
Sadly, Fossett would set one more record posthumously, and this one is not recognized by Guinness. The $1.6 million that authorities spent looking for him would constitute the most money ever devoted to a search-and-rescue mission for a single person within the United States.
Other Epic Achievements -- Ellen MacArthur of Britain became the first woman to sail nonstop around the world. Italian Nicolangelo Putignano held his breath for slightly more than 19 minutes. And another Italian, mountaineer Karl Unterkircher, became the first person to climb the world's two highest mountains -- Mount Everest and K2 -- in the same season. Unfortunately, Unterkircher fell into a crevasse while climbing in Pakistan, and his career was tragically cut short. (Vote)
6. Society -- The decade began with Bill Gates as the world's richest man, and it ends with him as the world's richest man, but he lost his title briefly, as Warren Buffett surged ahead of him in 2008. Gates stepped down from his post as Microsoft CEO and lost about $7 billion last year when the stock market tanked.
Still, the Windows whiz is worth about $50 billion, and despite the bad year, he nevertheless upped his contribution to his charitable foundation in 2009 to more than $3.8 billion.
Other Societal Records -- One more honor for Barack Obama: Guinness ranks his election as the first black president among the decade's top achievements. But being in this category -- alongside the biggest ever stock market slide, the deadliest disease and the most lethal terrorist attack -- isn't always such a good thing. (Vote)
7. Engineering -- While tenants have yet to move in, the United Arab Emirate's Burj Dubai is now recognized as the tallest man-made structure ever built on land. The 160-floor, 2,684-foot behemoth cost an estimated $4.1 billion to build, and the Jan. 4 opening will coincide with the accession of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum as the country's prime minister and ruler.
Out of necessity, the Burj will be equipped with the world's fastest elevators -- and there will be 56 of them.
Other Engineering Records -- Kingda Ka, at the Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey, takes the honor as the world's tallest and fastest roller coaster. Speed demons plunge from a 456-foot peek at 128 mph. The '00s also saw the construction of a 13,000-square-foot ice hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden. The 47-room fridge melts each spring, but occupancy has been so high that each year it gets rebuilt, in a different configuration, and it's only growing in size. (Vote)
8. Arts and Entertainment -- Congratulations, Homer Simpson! You've made the Guinness World Records book, and not expressly for being fat, drunk and stupid. But would people watch TV's longest-running series if he weren't so pleasingly fat, drunk and stupid? "The Simpson's" celebrated its 20th season in 2008-09 and overtook "The Adventures of Ozzy and Harriet" with its 436th episode. Cowabunga, man!
Other Records in Arts & Entertainment -- J.K. Rowling got the nod as the highest-earning children's author, with a fortune now estimated at about $800 million, making her one of the richest women in Britain. Not bad for a woman who was a single parent on welfare just after completing her first novel. (Vote)
Another mega-successful lady who calls Britain her home: Madonna. With her single "Four Minutes" in 2008, she topped Elvis Presley with her 37th Top 10 hit. We can only assume that the milestone made her feel like a virgin.
9. Sports -- Can we mention Tiger Woods' golfing achievements without bringing up his philandering personal life? (Oops, too late). Guinness hails his score of 19 under par at the 2000 British Open as one of the decade's greatest sports records. Never in the 140 years of golf at St. Andrews had the sports world seen such a performance. And now, we don't know when we'll see him next in another tournament.
Other Sports Records -- Lance Armstrong's seven straight Tour de France wins and Michael Phelps' eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympics stick out among athletic achievements. As for the decade's greatest team, that honor might go to the New England Patriots, the first NFL team to go undefeated in a 16-game season. Of course, the Pats' perfect run ended when the New York Giants beat them in the Super Bowl. (Vote)
10. Claimants -- There's a whole community of daredevil-adventurers who devote their lives in a quest for Guinness glory. Chief among them is Ashrita Furman, who has stilt-walked, hula-hooped and pogo-sticked his way into the record books, setting 245 marks (including the record for most records). As the decade closes, he still owns 101 of them, including the record for running a mile with a full bottle of milk balanced on his head (7 minutes, 47 seconds) and the fastest sprint on stilts (5 miles in 39 minutes).
Other Amazing Claimants -- Suresh Joachim moon-walked 30 miles, not to impress Michael Jackson but to be hailed as the best at something. He's also run the farthest distance on a treadmill in 24 hours (160.24 miles); and when he got married in 2003, he had 47 ushers, and his wife had 79 bridesmaids, the most ever. (Vote)
What records will stand the course of time? Nobody knows, not even the experts.
"I would never call any record impossible," Furman said. "When I broke the stilt record, I broke a record that stood for 113 years."
