The largest swimming pool in the world is over a kilometer long.

If you’re going after the Guinness world record for the largest swimming pool, it just got a bit tougher.

In January, the honor was awarded to the swimming pool at the San Alfonso del Mar resort in Algarrobo, Chile. The resort’s pool is a whopping 3,324 feet long and covers an area of 19.77 acres. (Only one problem: The world’s largest pool toy is 5,280 feet long…)

But never mind that. The swimming pool at San Alfonso del Mar is quite impressive, with a 115 foot deep end, and a 66 million gallon capacity. The saltwater lagoon uses a computer-controlled (isn’t everything these days?) filtration system to draw in fresh seawater at one end, then pump it back into the ocean at the other.

The Oldest Swimming Pool

I’m not sure if it’s the absolute oldest, but the bath at Mohenjo-daro in Sind, Pakistan, is pretty ancient. Built around 2600 BC, the pool area was lined with bricks and sealed with tar. It covered a 40 by 20 foot area, and was almost 8 feet deep, so, despite probably being used for religious ceremonies, I’m sure at least one person snuck in a dive at some point back when it still held water.

More Amasnic Pools

• Largest North American Indoor Wave Pool: World Waterpark at the Edmonton Mall in Alberta, Canada.
• Largest Indoor Pool Anywhere: The Neutral Buoyancy Lab where astronauts train in the Sonny Carter Training Center at NASA JSC in Houston holds 6.2 million gallons of H2O.
• Deepest Swimming Pool: Nemo 33 near Brussels, Belgium, is a recreational dive center. The pool there has two large flat-bottomed areas with a depth of 16 and 32 feet, and a large circular pit that goes to a depth of 108 feet.
• Largest US Swimming Pool: San Francisco’s Fleishhacker Pool was the largest swimming pool in the United States from 1925 until it closed in 1971. The pool was 1,000 feet long and 150 feet wide — so large that the lifeguards used kayaks to patrol it.

Swimming Pool Video

Now for some Amasnic video: San Alfonso del Mar Swimming Pool.

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Read More: largest swimming pool, San Alfonso del Mar, Guinness World Record, Algarrobo Chile, NASA JSC, Neutral Buoyancy Lab, Edmonton Mall, World Waterpark, Fleishhacker Pool

The biggest colossal squid ever caught weighs over 1000 pounds and measures almost 30 feet long.

In February, 2007, a Sanford seafood company fishing vessel, the San Aspiring, caught a toothfish on a long line while fishing in the freezing Ross Sea of the Antarctic. When the crew brought the toothfish to the surface, they realized they’d also caught a colossal squid. The squid wouldn’t let go of the toothfish, so they decided to catch the squid, too.

After hauling the squid aboard, the crew froze it in a cubic meter of water and brought it to the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Currently, Marine biologists at the museum are in the process of thawing the creature in order to learn more about the species.

Besides measuring the largest eyeballs ever seen (about the size of a beach ball), the team has measured the colossal squid’s lower beak at 40 centimeters across.

Since a 49 centimeter squid’s beak was previously found in the stomach of a sperm whale — and since the total squid size to beak size ratio is incremental, not linear — scientists believe there are still colossal squid in the ocean that are a great deal bigger.

The colossal squid may hold another record, too: first colossal squid to have its own blog. To keep up with the thawing process and read the latest findings, visit: Colossal Squid Te Papa’s Blog.

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Read More: giant squid, New Zealand

A laboratory in Texas has produced a light brighter than sunlight on the surface of the sun.

Prof Todd Ditmire, with help from colleagues at the Texas Center for High-Intensity Laser Science at The University of Texas at Austin, has flipped the switch on the $14 million Texas Petawatt laser. Thank God he had his shades on.

The Texas Petawatt laser is so named because it generates one thousand million million watts of laser power, making it the most powerful laser in the world. While the laser can’t yet destroy an entire planet, I do feel confident that VP Darth Cheney will be arriving to inspect it soon.

The Petawatt laser generates 2,000 times the power output of all the power plants in the United States — but only for a 10th of a trillionth of a second. Still, you can’t just suck that kind of juice out of a typical wall socket. Ditmire explains:

To fire up the Texas laser, electrical charge has to be pumped into twenty 20,000-volt capacitors. These capacitors energize the amplification tubes that pump up the energy of the laser light beam. Each tube contains an amplifying material, usually glass, that is “excited” by lamps powered by the capacitors. Every time the laser passes through one of these sheets of glass it gains more energy.

Ditmire and friends plan to use the laser to create and study matter at temperatures greater than those inside the sun — temperatures so high that gases break down into a soup of particles called a plasma. In the coming months, they will explore atronomical phenomena on a tiny scale, creating tabletop stars, min-supernovas, and studying advanced ideas for creating energy with controlled fusion.

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Read More: Texas Petawatt Laser, Todd Ditmire, Center for High-Intensity Laser Science, University of Texas, Austin

Scientists have confirmed that a virgin hammerhead shark gave birth to a pup in 2001.

Three sexually immature, female hammerhead sharks were captured and put in an aquarium at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo. Three years later, on December 14, 2001, one of the virgin sharks gave birth to a pup.

Recently, teams of scientists from Belfast, Nebraska, and Florida concluded DNA tests that failed to detect paternal DNA. These genetic tests proved the unbelievable, but obvious: the baby shark had no daddy.

Unfortunately, the baby shark was soon killed by a stingray before it could be removed from the tank.

The lead Belfast scientist, Dr Paulo Prodöhl, had this to say about the shark’s virgin birth:

The findings were really surprising because as far as anyone knew, all sharks reproduced only sexually by a male and female mating, requiring the embryo to get DNA from both parents for full development, just like in mammals.

The discovery that sharks can reproduce asexually by parthenogenesis now changes this paradigm, leaving mammals as the only major vertebrate (backboned creatures) group where this form of reproduction has not been seen.

That we know of ;-)

Parthenogenesis, the process of giving birth without male fertilization, has been observed mostly in lower plants, invertebrates (bees, aphids, ants…), and a few reptiles. Recently Komodo Dragons — and sharks — have been added to the list of species capable of parthenogenesis.

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Read More: shark, virgin birth, bonnethead, hammerhead, parthenogenesis

On Wednesday, 10,000 Filipino women created the largest mass breastfeeding frenzy ever witnessed on the planet.

The Filipino breastfeeders flocked to over 40,000 hospitals, day-care centers, and open-air parks across the Southeast Asian island nation.

They didn’t just come to give their children a mouthful, either. The participants seem to have broken the Guinness World Record for most number of mothers simultaneously breastfeeding their children in multiple sites.

No stranger to lactating world records, Philippine moms broke the Guinness record for single-site breastfeeding on May 4, 2006, when 3,738 mothers flashed Manila. That beat the 2002 record of 1,130 set in Berkeley, California.

Breast Milk Beats Baby Formula

The moms also brought awareness to the extraordinarily low rate of Philippine mothers who breastfeed their children: only 16 percent. In the rest of the developing world, about 44 percent of the mothers exclusively breastfeed for the first 4 months of their child’s life. Unfortunately, due to the marketing of baby formula, breastfeeding is on the decline in the Philippines.

But UNICEF is raising the alarm. According to UNICEF, lack of breastfeeding can harm an infant’s immune system, stunt their growth, and compromise the baby’s intelligence. Record-breaking activities like the Guinness record attempt are educating moms and making a difference.

Donate Breast Milk

An estimated 12 million African children under the age of 18 have been orphaned by AIDS. There are many African infants who need your breast milk. If you’re able, don’t forget to donate your extra breast milk!

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Read More: breastfeeding, Philippines, breast milk, Guinness World Records