Always be giving each other your props and your snaps
Today you get a double dose of news I find interesting that you might not have read about. The subjects of today's winning stories have my undying respect -- both for very different reasons, but they have my respect, nonetheless. I'll let their stories speak for themselves.
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Man breaks sleep deprivation record
A man has claimed a new record by succeeding in his bid to stay awake for 11 days as part of his research into human sleep.
Tony Wright, 42, began his attempt on the 264-hour record at 6 a.m. on May 14 at the Studio Bar in Penzance, west Cornwall.
A qualified horticulturist, he relied on a raw food diet, including fruit, salad, seeds and nuts, to help keep him awake.
After setting the record just after 6 a.m. on Friday, he said: "I feel pretty good but a bit shaky. It has not really sunk in yet that I have beaten the record.
"I do not feel tired yet, but there is a bit of adrenaline pumping around at the moment."
He said his diet and intake of herb tea "seemed to make a big difference to my ability to stay awake and remain functional".
Mr Wright had the help of friends, chatting and playing pool, to keep him awake. He has conducted 15 years of research into human sleep, and claimed each side of the human brain requires a different amount of sleep. With appropriate preparation, it is possible to stay awake and remain functional for long periods, he said.
During his record bid he said he had one "near sleep experience" and found the most difficult thing to do was writing his website diary while sleep-deprived.
Student Randy Gardner set the Guinness World Record in 1964 as part of a science project in San Diego, US.
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Now, apparently there has since been questions raised about if he actually broke the record or not. You can Google that if you'd like. I don't even care. Eleven days is pretty freaking amazing. Here's to you, Tony Wright. I don't even feel like I can boast about my tales of sleep deprivation anymore.
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Man Wrestles Leopard That Jumped in Bed
JERUSALEM (AP) - A man clad only in underwear and a T-shirt wrestled a wild leopard to the floor and pinned it for 20 minutes after the cat leapt through a window of his home and hopped into bed with his sleeping family.
"This kind of thing doesn't happen every day," said 49-year-old Arthur Du Mosch, a nature guide. "I don't know why I did it. I wasn't thinking, I just acted."
Raviv Shapira, who heads the southern district of the Israel Nature and Parks Protection Authority, said a half dozen leopards have been spotted recently near Du Mosch's small community in the Negev desert in southern Israel, although they rarely threaten humans.
Shapira said it was probably food that lured the big cat. Leopards living near humans are usually too old to hunt in the wild and resort to chasing down domestic dogs and cats for food, he added.
Du Mosch's pet cat was in the bed with him at the time, along with his young daughter who had been frightened by a mosquito in her own room.
Shapira said the leopard was very weak when park rangers arrived at Du Mosch's home after the surprise late-night visit. He said nature officials would likely release it back into the wild.
Du Mosch said he probably would not have been able to control the big cat were it in better health. As a nature guide, he said, he was familiar with animals and did his best to hold down the leopard without harming it. He said he took it all in stride, "but the kids were excited."
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If I had a list of 10 things (well, maybe 100 things) I wanted to do before I died, reading that story would make me want to add pinning a wild leopard to the floor to the list. And because I don't have a list like that, reading that story makes me want to create that list just so I could add "wild leopard encounter" to it. Now if someone just has a wild leopard to spare. We really don't get too many native ones here on the coast. You can just leave it on my back porch. Or in my car. I won't be too particular.
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Man breaks sleep deprivation record
A man has claimed a new record by succeeding in his bid to stay awake for 11 days as part of his research into human sleep.
Tony Wright, 42, began his attempt on the 264-hour record at 6 a.m. on May 14 at the Studio Bar in Penzance, west Cornwall.
A qualified horticulturist, he relied on a raw food diet, including fruit, salad, seeds and nuts, to help keep him awake.
After setting the record just after 6 a.m. on Friday, he said: "I feel pretty good but a bit shaky. It has not really sunk in yet that I have beaten the record.
"I do not feel tired yet, but there is a bit of adrenaline pumping around at the moment."
He said his diet and intake of herb tea "seemed to make a big difference to my ability to stay awake and remain functional".
Mr Wright had the help of friends, chatting and playing pool, to keep him awake. He has conducted 15 years of research into human sleep, and claimed each side of the human brain requires a different amount of sleep. With appropriate preparation, it is possible to stay awake and remain functional for long periods, he said.
During his record bid he said he had one "near sleep experience" and found the most difficult thing to do was writing his website diary while sleep-deprived.
Student Randy Gardner set the Guinness World Record in 1964 as part of a science project in San Diego, US.
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Now, apparently there has since been questions raised about if he actually broke the record or not. You can Google that if you'd like. I don't even care. Eleven days is pretty freaking amazing. Here's to you, Tony Wright. I don't even feel like I can boast about my tales of sleep deprivation anymore.
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Man Wrestles Leopard That Jumped in Bed
JERUSALEM (AP) - A man clad only in underwear and a T-shirt wrestled a wild leopard to the floor and pinned it for 20 minutes after the cat leapt through a window of his home and hopped into bed with his sleeping family.
"This kind of thing doesn't happen every day," said 49-year-old Arthur Du Mosch, a nature guide. "I don't know why I did it. I wasn't thinking, I just acted."
Raviv Shapira, who heads the southern district of the Israel Nature and Parks Protection Authority, said a half dozen leopards have been spotted recently near Du Mosch's small community in the Negev desert in southern Israel, although they rarely threaten humans.
Shapira said it was probably food that lured the big cat. Leopards living near humans are usually too old to hunt in the wild and resort to chasing down domestic dogs and cats for food, he added.
Du Mosch's pet cat was in the bed with him at the time, along with his young daughter who had been frightened by a mosquito in her own room.
Shapira said the leopard was very weak when park rangers arrived at Du Mosch's home after the surprise late-night visit. He said nature officials would likely release it back into the wild.
Du Mosch said he probably would not have been able to control the big cat were it in better health. As a nature guide, he said, he was familiar with animals and did his best to hold down the leopard without harming it. He said he took it all in stride, "but the kids were excited."
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If I had a list of 10 things (well, maybe 100 things) I wanted to do before I died, reading that story would make me want to add pinning a wild leopard to the floor to the list. And because I don't have a list like that, reading that story makes me want to create that list just so I could add "wild leopard encounter" to it. Now if someone just has a wild leopard to spare. We really don't get too many native ones here on the coast. You can just leave it on my back porch. Or in my car. I won't be too particular.
posted by Jonathan at
3:10 AM
1 Comments:
If you need practice... you know, while you're waiting for someone to lend you a wild cat, you can come wrestle my 115 pound German Sheperd. Plus, if you don't sleep for like 11 days, she might look like a leopard.
By
Becca Vennie, at 12:09 AM, May 31, 2007
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