Human polar bear Miao Zhiqing from Dalian, Liaoning Province plunged himself in the Guinness book of World Records by swimming in frigid 2.0 degree Celcius seawater for 65 minutes on New Years Day.
Specialists from the Shanghai Guinness headquarters supervised the arctic-like swim at a beach in Dalian and confirmed Miao's success. The General Administration of Sport of China also sent two judges and more than 2,000 fans witnessed it.
Workers from the Dalian Meteorological Bureau and Oceanic Monitoring Station measured air and seawater temperatures while Miao took the long icy plunge and swam back and forth for 2,000 meters attended by a boatload of observers and potential rescuers.
The 48-year-old security guard from Dalian Fisheries University decided to aim for the Guinness Record after he swam for 80 minutes in slightly warmer 5.5 degree celcius seawater on New year's day 2009.
He began his winter swims in 1994 and gradually developed his resistance to extreme cold.
--------------------
A Romanian woman nearly lost her family's life savings when she threw out her husband's old boots.
The wife, named Roxana, was cleaning her flat for Christmas when she found the boots in a wardrobe.
She threw them out with the rubbish - without realising her husband had hidden the equivalent of ?37,000 pounds in one of them.
The couple was saving money to build a new house and were keeping it inside their apartment because they didn't trust the banks.
The husband said: "We had a previous bad experience with an investment fund which went bankrupt and prefered to keep the money in house.
"I changed the hiding place without making sure my wife knew exactly where that was. I told her but she may not have been paying attention."
After a one week investigation, police discovered the money had been found by local woman who had already used it to buy a house.
The house deal was cancelled and the money was returned to its rightful owners.
--------------------
Choosing a name for your baby is already difficult enough ¨C but now US researchers have upped the stakes by claiming that the right decision could add up to 10 years to a child's life.
Psychologists have determined that your first initial has a major affect on your longevity, with people whose names begin with A significantly outliving those beginning with D. And, they claim, it could all be down to a subconscious link to school grades, where A represents high achievement and D near failure.
Unlikely as it may seem, researchers suggest this means people with D names are more likely to develop lifelong low self-esteem, which, in turn, may lower their defenses against disease.
The research by psychologists at Wayne State University in Detroit examined the lifespans of more than 10,000 professional athletes, doctors and lawyers born between 1875 and 1930. The results showed that those whose first names began with D lived, on average, shorter lives than those whose names began with other letters.
--------------------
Fans of blockbuster movie Avatar are being promised a 'blue' alien sex scene when the film comes out on DVD.
The sex scene was cut from the cinema version of the 3D sci-fi adventure, director James Cameron told a recent press conference.
It features the giant blue avatar of paraplegic US Marine Jake Sully locking hair with his love interest, Neytiri.
Cameron said: "We had it in and we cut it out so that will be something for the special edition DVD - if you want to see how they have sex."
Actress Zoe Saldana, who plays Neytiri, said the sex involves the same process the alien race uses to communicate on its fictional home planet.
In the film, communication takes place by locking hair with flora and fauna, in a process known as "synching".
The actress says the scene was left out originally because the film was aimed at family audiences. |
