Latest news with #MountEverests
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Virginia Beach man's world record gum wrapper chain, 23 miles long and growing, a 60-year obsession
Gary Duschl has always been a collector. Inside his Virginia Beach residence, small dog and cat statues sit upon most of the surfaces. Dozens of antique glass bottles line some of his shelves. By the time he was 25, he had traveled across the United States to collect all of the Superman comics. But Duschl's greatest collection sticks out. For the past 60 years, Duschl has chained together more than 2.9 million gum wrappers into a single chain. Each wrapper is ripped in two, folded six times, and then inserted into another. The chain, which is held in 21 plexiglass display cases inside its own special room, is just over 23 miles, or 122,066 feet. That's three times longer than the Tide light rail. It's also 407 football fields, four Mount Everests and 83 Empire State Buildings. If walking at a leisurely pace, Duschl estimated it would take about eight hours to cover the chain's length. Though he doesn't chew gum anymore, Duschl doesn't need to ask friends and family for their post-chew trash. He's often sent wrappers directly from Wrigley, and gum enthusiasts around the world have sent their wrappers, as well. Now in his 70s, Duschl has no interest in stopping. Duschl weaves about 5½ feet of new wrapper chain — the height of his wife — a night while watching television. 'These are the only tools I use,' Duschl said, wriggling his fingers. On Tuesday, land surveyors from Precision Measurements Inc. were at Duschl's home to update his world record with the Guinness Book of World Records. The team started at 8:30 a.m. and spent several hours validating the chain's length, measuring 1,000-foot chunks every 19 minutes. 'I've surveyed bridges, tunnels, nothing like this. This is very different,' said Chris Taylor, one of the surveyors. 'It's unbelievable.' With Taylor on one end of the upstairs hall and Ivan Lineberry, another surveyor, on the other, they used a binder clip to mark every 25 feet of gum wrappers, followed by a pink flag every 1,000 feet. Specifically, surveyors were only measuring Duschl's last five years of chain, since he had it last measured for the world record in 2020. This year also marks the 60th year of the chain's existence, so Duschl wanted to officially commemorate the benchmark. The previous record, set in 1994 by a Washington woman, was only 7,400 feet, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. 'I was just doing it because I like doing it,' he said of folding the wrappers. 'One day, my wife and I went into the Niagara Falls Ripley's Believe It or Not, and they had (a chain) all over the ceiling. It said 'giant gum wrapper chain.' My wife touched me, and she said, 'You better do something about that.'' Duschl said he met with one of the Ripley's administrators shortly after to discuss his own gum wrapper chain. At the time, Duschl said his gum wrapper chain was much more moveable, so he brought it to the meeting to potentially have it displayed. 'I showed it to him, and he said, 'That's impressive, but there is a Guinness record that's longer than your chain,'' Duschl recalled. 'I just went crazy. Now, the work is on.' Like a tangible timeline, the chain showcases the passage of time for the Wrigley brand. Gum-related posters and Wrigley advertisements cover the wall, and large cases hold cups, buttons and even a pack of Juicy Fruit from 1895. Inside the room's closet, boxes full of gum wrappers directly from Wrigley wait to be added to the chain. Over the years, Duschl said the quality of wrapper has gotten much better for folding, making for a stronger chain. Duschl's chain has been featured on TV shows and in dozens of record and oddity-related books (another collection of his). He receives partial chains of wrappers from around the world, but he prefers to claim full ownership wrappers. 'I enjoy doing it, and we'll keep doing it until I reach my next goal, which is the marathon length (of 26.2 miles),' Duschl said. 'That's going to take three more miles, and this last three miles took me five years, but I am slowing down. I just don't go as fast as they used to anymore, but the record is in sight.' Eliza Noe,
BBC News
12-03-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Hardest Geezer Russ Cook begins running length of New Zealand
A man who ran the entire length of Africa has begun his latest challenge – running the full length of New Cook, nicknamed Hardest Geezer, completed his previous endurance challenge in April last year after 352 27-year-old, from Worthing, West Sussex, plans to run the 1,864 mile (3,000km) Te Araroa Trail, which will see him take on 60 ultramarathons while navigating mountains, forests, coastlines and cities."The incredible, warm welcome I've received so far has already given me a glimpse of how special the journey ahead of me will be," he said. He has begun the challenge at Stirling Point in Bluff - the southern tip of New Zealand's South Island - and will run northbound for about 60 days to the finish line in Cape Rēinga, in Cook said he expected to climb the equivalent of approximately 10 Mount Everests in elevation over approximately the next 10 weeks. During the challenge, he is also due to bungee jump off Auckland Harbour Bridge, canyon swing in Queenstown and sky dive in Abel Tasman. He said he was excited to be "back on the road again" in his first major expedition since running the length of Africa."If anything, from my experiences before in Africa, it has made me more finely attuned to the risks that I can take and the risks that I can't take," he said."A lot of personal growth is done in those little uncomfortable spots."You're not totally 100% sure, but you go for it anyway, and you make it happen, and that's when you learn." Mr Cook raised more than £1m for charity during his previous challenge in Africa, despite complications with visas, health scares, geopolitical issues and an armed extreme challenge began at South Africa's most southerly point on 22 April 2023, and finished more than 10,190 miles (16,400km) north in ultramarathon runner said he planned to continue living adventurously for as long as his body allowed."When I'm older, when the body's keeled over a bit, I expect I'll pick up where I left off," he said.
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists Discover Thousands of New Microbes Lurking in The Ocean's Deepest Zone
Just 6 kilometers (about 4 miles) of briny water separate the ocean's surface from the depths known as the hadal zone. Yet for as much as we know what lurks in its cold darkness, it might as well be another world. The life that flourishes down there is also downright alien. A new study has recovered a plethora of never-before-seen microbes from areas of the ocean floor that include the Mariana Trench. Analyzing their alien methods for survival could give biologists a whole new bank of resources to use in everything from medicine to evolutionary research. The hadal zone starts 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) deep, and goes down as far as 11 kilometers (6.8 miles). That lower limit is almost 30 Empire State Buildings, or around one-and-a-quarter Mount Everests. It's deep. Researchers from institutions across China took 33 dives into the hadal zone with a manned submersible, collecting samples of sediment and seawater. Subsequent analysis identified 7,564 microbe species, of which nearly 90 percent were new to science. "Our study focuses on a long-standing goal in microbial ecology: elucidating how environments shape microbial communities, especially in extreme conditions," write the researchers in their published paper. Life is far from easy in the hadal zone. Temperatures are close to freezing, the water pressure is immense, and there's very little in the way of nutrients to snack on. With that in mind, the diversity of species was surprising. The microbes the researchers discovered generally applied one of two survival strategies. Some had smaller, simpler genomes, evolved for efficient living. These microbes showed evidence of enzymes designed to resist the stresses of living at such depths. Other microbes were found to have larger genomes – not built for efficiency but for versatility. This makes them better able to adapt to environmental pressures, and to be able to survive off a wider range of matter for sustenance. "Extraordinarily high novelty, diversity, and heterogeneity were observed in the hadal microbiome, especially among prokaryotes and viruses, which are impacted by both the broader context of extreme environmental conditions as well as the delicate topography in the hadal zone," the researchers note in an editorial accompanying their paper. The microbes also tend to find suitable nooks and crannies in the depths of the ocean and stick to them: each of the sample sites visited by the researchers had their own particular mix of microbes, with little overlap between them. At lower depths, cooperation seems to be more important for microbe survival, with these tiny organisms sharing nutrients and showing behaviors that benefit the community as a whole (including forming protective biofilms). The research team has made its findings available online for other scientists to dig into, under the title of the Mariana Trench Environment and Ecology Research (MEER) project – adding to our understanding of how life survives in extreme conditions, and opening up new research opportunities in biotechnology. "These findings indicated that environmental factors drive the high taxonomic novelty in the hadal zone, advancing our understanding of the ecological mechanisms governing microbial ecosystems in such an extreme oceanic environment," write the researchers. The research has been published in Cell. Remarkable Drone Footage Reveals How Narwhals Use Their Tusks Largest Insect on Earth Headed For Extinction Thanks to Our Love of Chocolate The Sun's Activity Can Trigger Earthquakes, And Now We Know How
