The weekly weird

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Woman hula hoops while skating backwards

Veronica Harris, 54, of Houston, earned the record for the longest duration roller skating backwards while hula hooping, 33 minutes and 1 second, Guinness World Records said.

“I love skating, but I am passionate about hula hooping,” Harris told GWR. “I love the challenge of trying to make the hula hoop do what is in my brain. It takes months to learn a trick and that’s OK. Life is a journey, not a marathon.”

Harris also holds the record for longest duration roller skating backwards while spinning three hula hoops, 5 minutes and 4 seconds. She said other record attempts are in her future.

World’s widest wig, measures over 8 feet across

Dani Rey­nolds, an Aus­tralian, broke a Guin­ness World Record when he crafted a wig measuring 8 feet and 6 inches wide.

Reynolds based the colour and texture of the wig on his own hair and created a substructure to support the massive mop of fabric. The support structure was made from a bike helmet, PVC pipe, pool noodles, cable ties and aluminium rods, Guinness World Record said.

Has T. rex lost its bite? Menacing snarl may be wrong

The Tyrannosaurus rex is often shown baring massive, sharp teeth, like the ferocious creature in Jurassic Park. But new research suggests that this classic image might be wrong.

The teeth on T. rex and other big theropods were likely covered by scaly lips, concludes a study published in the journal Science. The dinosaur’s teeth didn’t stick out when its mouth was closed, and even in a wide open bite, you might just see the tips, the scientists found.

“It’s not the first time our depictions of dinosaurs have been called into question: Other research has shown that T. rex was more hunched over than we used to think, and that fierce velociraptors probably sported feathers. Most of what we know about dinosaurs comes from their bones, but it can be harder to get clear answers about soft tissues like skin, which usually aren’t preserved as fossils. Adding lips may make dinosaurs look a little less ferocious, but it also makes them feel more realistic,” Mark Witton, a paleo artist at England’s University of Portsmouth said.

World’s oldest surfer

An 89-year-old Japanese surfer has become the world’s oldest person to surf. Seiichi Sano, was 88 years and 288 days old when Guinness World Records verified he rode the waves on July 8 of last year.

When Sano went surfing for the first time, he was instantly hooked. He now surfs year-round. He had a system to make sure learning didn’t leave him frustrated.

“You do it for three days, then you take a break, and you do it again for three days, and so on. If you go into new things with a mindset that you don’t have to continue trying forever, I think most people actually continue for a very long time,” he said.

Published in Dawn, Young World, April 15th, 2023

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