Egyptian siblings earn five records for hand, foot and arm span sizes

A pair of Egyptian siblings have five Guinness World Records between them, after their hands, feet and arm spans were measured.

Mohamed Shehata and Huda Shehata, both developed a condition shortly before puberty that involves a benign tumour of the pituitary gland producing too much growth hormone.

Mohamed Shehata now holds two records: widest hand span on a living person (male) and widest arm span on a living person (male). The span of his left hand was 12.32 inches and his arm span was 8 feet, 2.5 inches.

Huda Shehata holds the records for largest feet on a living person (female), largest hands on a living person (female) and widest arm span on a living person (female). Her right foot was measured at 1 foot, 1.02 inches; her left hand was measured at 9.56 inches; and her arm span was measured at 7 feet, 8.4 inches.

The siblings have a combined height of 13 feet and 7 inches, nearly as tall as a double-decker bus. They are growing and might need to undergo surgery to stop their growth from becoming dangerous to their health.

Boy climbs stairs while hula hooping

Aadhav Sugumar of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, climbed the 50 stairs at the Kumaran Kundram Temple at Hastinapuram Main Road in Chromepet while keeping a hula-hoop in motion around his body to break the record of 23.39 seconds, which was set by a US man, Ashrita Furman, in 2018.

Sugumar spent two months practicing for the record by scaling the steps at the Ashok Nagar Metro Station near his home.

He next plans to take on a record for hula hooping while running and he is also hoping to learn to juggle.

Octopus paints work of art at aquarium

An aquarium in Florida shared video of an octopus getting in touch with its artistic side by using its tentacles to create a painting.

The Florida Aquarium in Tampa posted a video to Facebook, showing the octopus creating a painting on a plastic-wrapped canvas with the assistance of a human keeper.

The aquarium said the “enrichment painting session” was planned to coincide with the facility’s Cephalopod Week event.

Cobwebs cover Australian towns after flooding

Residents of a rural region of Victoria, Australia, found their towns blanketed in cobwebs resulting from spiders fleeing from flood conditions. Fields, homes and trees in the Gippsland region got covered in blankets of spider silk.

“This is a surprisingly common phenomenon after floods.

These animals who spend their lives cryptically on the ground, can’t live there anymore, and they move to the higher ground,” Professor Dieter Hochuli, an ecologist from the University of Sydney, told sources.

The webs resulted from a phenomenon known as “ballooning,” which involves spiders using strands of silk to ride on gusts of wind.

Simultaneous ballooning by thousands of spiderlings can result in a remarkable carpet of silk, called gossamer, covering shrubs or fields.

Published in Dawn, Young World, July 17th, 2021