World Records

Comprehensive climate data has shown that globally, 2020 was the warmest year on record, tied with 2016. Worryingly, 2020’s record came in spite of a La Niña event, which has a cooling effect, while 2016’s record came off the back of a warming El Niño.

Silicon has long been the gold standard for solar cells, but it’s approaching its limit. Perovskite is emerging as a promising partner, and now engineers have achieved a new efficiency record for this kind of tandem solar cell – almost 30 percent.

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.

Spanish company Quaternium has destroyed its own record for gasoline-electric drone endurance with a 10-hour, 14-minute flight. But how does that stack up against hydrogen and batteries, and what are the implications for the emerging eVTOL market?

America's Shelby Supercars has more or less abandoned its world's fastest car claim after eagle-eyed YouTubers pointed out a number of embarrassing, possibly costly discrepancies in its video of the SSC Tuatara making a claimed 316-mph two-way run.

An internet-beaming balloon has broken a flight record, staying aloft in the stratosphere for 312 days straight. Developed and launched by Loon, the balloon circumnavigated the globe for 10 months, demonstrating the resilience of the network.

Thirteen years after its first world speed record, SSC has done it again, absolutely blowing the field away with an official record. Driver Oliver Webb took the 1,750-hp Tuatara's wheel and pushed past 300 mph (483 km/h) ... and just kept going.

Physicists in Germany have measured the shortest timespan ever recorded. The team measured the time it takes for a photon of light to travel the length of a hydrogen molecule, and found it to occur in just trillionths of a billionth of a second.

An almost-complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton has sold for over US$30 million. Nicknamed Stan, the rex was the star attraction in Christie’s Evening Sale of 20th Century Art on Oct. 6, and it's fetched the highest amount ever paid for a dinosaur fossil.

Sixteen-year-old Chloe Chambers has set a new Guinness World Record for "fastest vehicle slalom," and Porsche now has a new performance metric to brag about for its 718 Spyder as the most agile car on the planet.

In December 2019, Germany's Dr. Dennis Freiburg stamped his name into the Guinness Book of World Records with the world's lightest ebike: the 6.872-kg (15.15-lb) Freicycle. Now, he's revealed how he did it – with a 600-watt friction drive motor.

There are few more spectacular demonstrations of nature's power than a thunderstorm. The World Meteorological Association (WMO) has now confirmed two new records for the biggest lightning bolts in recorded history, measured by duration and distance.