World Records

Traveling at 80.74 mph (129.94 km/h) on four wheels won’t usually grab you a Guinness world record, but when that feat is achieved on a vehicle that relies on only leg power and gravity, it’s another story. That’s just what 28-year old Mischo Erban has done in a record-breaking downhill skateboard run at Les Éboulements in Quebec, Canada, this week.  Read More

The "world's most expensive billboard" might bring about thoughts of neon lights lofted high above prime city real estate, but it probably wouldn't make you think of jetpacks. However, an interactive billboard with a soaring jetpack is exactly how a Middle Eastern skydiving outfit and American energy drink company found their way to what they call the world's priciest billboard.  Read More

Yet another world auction record fell during the week when a 1991 Aston Martin DB4GT Zagato Sanction II Coupé was sold for GBP1.23 million (US$1.93). One of just four cars built 30 years after the first batch, the car was previously owned by singer Phil Collins' manager Tony Smith and had just 4,748 miles on the odometer.  Read More

The Viennese WestLicht Photographica Auction House continued its stellar run of success with its 21st Camera auction in just its eleventh year as an auction house, when it recently broke its own world record for the fifth consecutive time by selling one of the original Leica 0-series cameras for €2,160,000 (US$2.77 million), including the buyer’s premium.  Read More

Apparently not happy with collecting over 40 world driving fuel economy records, the husband and wife team of John and Helen Taylor – also known as “the world’s most fuel efficient couple” – have been back on the road to claim the world record for the longest distance traveled on a single tank of fuel. The record 1,626.1 mile (2,616.95 km) journey was achieved in a stock 2012 Volkswagen Passat powered by a 2.0-liter TDI Clean Diesel inline four-cylinder engine with a six-speed manual transmission.  Read More

Volvo’s 2100 bhp D16 diesel/electric "Mean Green" hybrid truck has established a new world speed record for hybrid trucks, beating its own record. The Mean Green's 236.577 km/h (147.002 mph) flying kilometer is not much faster than the wind-powered land speed record of 202.9 km/h set by Ecotricity Greenbird in 2009, but then again the truck runs the same Volvo hybrid drive system powering hundreds of Volvo buses throughout the world, including London's double-decker buses.  Read More

German solar technology specialist Heliatek has set a new benchmark for the efficiency of organic solar cells. In independent tests, a new world record efficiency of 10.7 percent was achieved for the company's latest tandem organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells ... and 15 percent may be just a few years away.  Read More

Round performance numbers aren't necessarily important milestones, but they do exude an undeniable aura of accomplishment. This was the case when researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) used their largest pulsed magnet to crack the 100 Tesla mark (roughly 2 million times larger than the Earth's magnetic field) by generating a 100.75 Tesla magnetic pulse without damaging the magnet.  Read More

On March 26 at 7:52am local time, film maker/explorer James Cameron entered the history books and became the first person to visit the ocean's deepest point alone. Just two weeks ago, we reported on his previous solo-dive record of 26,791 feet (8,166m), which he handily smashed by plunging 35,756 feet (10,898m) into the Mariana Trench's Challenger Deep southwest of Guam. If the handful of contenders still vying for the record want to beat Cameron, they'll now have to excavate, because that's as deep as it gets.  Read More