Record-breaking

Californian hypercar company Czinger has its sights set on lap records worldwide, and its wild 21C hybrid hypercar got its first taste of blood last month on home court, slashing more than two seconds off the Laguna Seca lap record held by McLaren.

Earlier this year we saw Mercedes-AMG roll out its most powerful V8 ever, the GT Black Series, and the automaker has wasted little time in showing what it can do, having it round the Nürburgring Nordschleife faster than any production car before it.

The newest Lamborghini, the Aventador SVJ, has yet to be released to the public. That hasn’t stopped Lambo from taking it to the Nurburgring and setting a Nordshleife lap record, though. The Aventador SVJ set a new production car lap record of 6:44.97 minutes while wearing stylish camouflage.

"World’s smallest computer” is a contentious title, not just because scientists are racing to shrink devices, but because the very definition of a computer could be up for debate. The latest claim to the title is a tiny device that communicates through light and makes a grain of rice look gigantic.

The Vanilla Aircraft VA001 has broken the unmanned internal combustion powered flight record by staying aloft aloft for 5 days, 1 hour and 24 minutes. After flying in a circular orbit for over 7,000 miles, it touched down with three days of fuel still in its tanks.

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson's third stint living aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has come to an end, with the celebrated station commander returning to Earth having spent more cumulative time in space than any US astronaut before her.

Last November, Intel famously broke its own record for most drones flying in formation, by setting 500 of the things in coordinated flight at once. Now, the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou has set the new high mark, by putting 1,000 quadcopters in the air together.

The McLaren F1 is arguably the most significant supercar of the modern era. It's been 25 years since Andy Wallace completed his record run at Ehra-Lessien, and McLaren has celebrated by diving into the archives for some period footage of the F1 racing into the history books.

As early data​ predicted, NASA and the NOAA have now reported that globally, 2016 was the warmest year since records began in 1880. That puts us on a streak of three years in a row that have surpassed previous records.

Earlier this year, Carl Reese and Deena Mastracci made a 3,011-mile (4,846-km) drive from Los Angeles to New York in 58 hours and 51 minutes in a Tesla Model S P85D. Now Reese and Mastracci, joined by Alex Roy, have beaten that record with the help of Tesla's new Autopilot software. ​

It takes a certain kind of person to take on Land Speed Record (LSR) racing. When you’re doing 300 mph, or more, things can go real wrong, real fast. Now imagine doing that on a motorcycle. Now imagine going over 400 mph and you can see just how daunting, if not downright crazy, the task is.

The Central Japan Railway Company has whisked passengers along a section of track at up to 500 km/h (311 mph) during testing of the levitating Shinkansen train. One hundred wide-eyed train enthusiasts were onboard the train's first manned voyage, with trials to continue over eight days.