Sushi may be a Japanese dish, but that didn’t stop a team of Norwegian chefs from creating the world’s largest sushi mosaic, at their country’s pavilion at the Shanghai Expo.

As China celebrated its ten millionth imported Norwegian salmon, last week, Norway decided the creation of a giant sushi mosaic would be a great way to recognize the milestone. Norwegian chefs arranged 8,734 sushi pieces into a beautiful mosaic depicting the intertwined Norwegian and Chinese flags.

Relations between China and Norway have been a bit tense since a Norwegian committee  awarded the Nobel Piece Prize 2010 to Liu Xiaobo, a jailed Chinese dissident, on October 8. By emphasizing on the importance of salmon in the diplomatic relations between the two nations, Norway hopes to come to better terms with  China.

Check out the making-of video of the world’s biggest sushi mosaic, at the bottom. It takes a while for the chefs to actually start arranging the sushi pieces, but it’s worth it.

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Trying to come up with an original birthday present for mother in law, a museum curator managed to set a new world record for the world’s largest toast mosaic.

27-year-old Laura Hadland, a museum curator from Leicester, wanted to offer her mother-in-law a really special gift, on her 50th birthday. Together with 40 friends and volunteers, Laura spent six hours toasting thousands of bread slices and arranging them into an amazing mosaic of the woman she calls not only a great mother-in-law, but also one of her best friends.

The world’s largest toast mosaic was created using a set of ten bread toasters and measures 32 feet 8 inches by 42 feet 3 inches. Its made up of 9,852 slices toasted to varying degrees of brown, which add up to about 600 bread loafs.

As a museum curator, Laura Hadland has had plenty of experience working with ancient Roman mosaics, and admits she was thrilled to create a modern mosaic out of her favorite food. Her mother-in-law says it’s a bit weird seeing her face recreated from pieces of toast, but at the same time very flattering.

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If you thought riding a horse was difficult enough, equestrian vaulting will seem like an impossible feat. Still, it’s practiced worldwide, and it’s even an event at the World Equestrian Games.

Equestrian vaulting is best described as gymnastics and dancing on horseback. Its origins are pretty unclear, with some saying it originated in ancient Rome, and other claiming it came from he island of Crete. One thing is for certain – horseback vaulting has been around for over 2,000 years, and it’s still a entertaining and exciting sport. Vaulting is particularly popular in countries like Germany and France, but it’s gaining a lot of followers in other parts of the world, like Brazil Australia or the United States.

In competitive equestrian vaulting athletes compete by themselves or in teams of two or more. Both the vaulters and the horse are judged according to their performances and receive scores from 0 to 10. Beginners perform their routine during the horse’s walk, while experienced vaulters perform on the horse at a canter. Horses used for vaulting are trained especially for this kind of events, and they are controlled by a lunger who keeps them moving in 15-meter circles.

The components of a vaulting exercise include a mount and dismount, as well as various maneuvers like kneeling, standing, handstands, flips, and tossing teammates into the air. While the vaulting horse is not saddled, it does wear a surcingle fitted with special handles that help vaulters.

The latest vaulting exhibition took place at the World Equestrian Games 2010, and was won by the US team. You can see an entire vaulting routine, in the video at the bottom.

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20-month-old Naaman Amer, from the city of Nablus, West Bank enjoys eating hot peppers and is considered the world’s youngest pepper eater. The young Palestinian boy has been gobbling down green peppers since he was just 14 months old, and his parents are quite proud of his appetite for the throat-burning veggies. Naaman eats them at every meal, and so far he hasn’t had any health issues, but I still think it’s pretty weird for a boy this young to eat so many hot peppers.

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Showcased during the Zhejiang International Bicycle Electric-Cycle Exhibition, this 5.2 meters long electric bicycle can seat eight people and its manufacturer has already applied for the World’s Longest Electric Bike Guinness Record.

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In an attempt to promote eggs as a healthy and cheap food source, and celebrate World Egg Day, Turkish chefs managed to set a new world record for the World’s Largest Omelette.

50 Turkish cooks, along with 1o chefs whisked 110,010 eggs on a giant fryer, 10 meters in diameter. The omelette took 2.5 hours to cook, but I bet the people involved could think of no better way to celebrate World Egg Day. 432 liters of oil were needed to make this larger-than-life-dish nice and fluffy. The event was staged by the Turkish Egg Producers Association as a way of promoting eggs as a tasty and healthy meal.

The giant omelette weighed 4.4 tons, beating the old record of 3.625 tons, by almost a ton. After the offcial weighing, the omlette was served to the thousands of by-standers attracted by the smell.

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Just days after he showcased his amazing duct tape AT-AT model, Star Wars fan komanac strikes again, with the awesome Aluminum Falcon.

Inspired by the animated comedy series Robot Chicken, the Aluminum Falcon is a truly unique piece of Star Wars fan art. Made from styrofoam, cardboard, duct tape and aluminum foil, the one of a kind replica of the Millennium Falcon weighs just 4-6 lbs and was first showcased at “the Star Wars 33&1/3 Anniversary” art show.

The best thing about the Aluminum Falcon is that it can be your to own, if you hurry up and place your bid on eBay, before some other Star Wars fan snatches it away. Keep in mind though, just like the duct tape AT-At, this is not a toy, and shouldn’t be treated like one.

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Stretching 3.95 kilometers, along Hanoi’s Red River, Ceramic Road has been declared the world’s longest ceramic mural, by the Guinness Book of Records.

Ceramic Road was a massive art project, initiated by artist Nguyen Thu Thuy, out of love and passion for Hanoi, and as a special way to celebrate the city’s 1000th anniversary. She first got the idea for a record-breaking ceramic mural in 2003, when she discovered ancient bricks and ceramics from the Ly dynasty, and other artifacts from the Tran dynasty, at an archeological site. She thought about the long history pf these findings, and decided a mural would best reflect the patterns of Vietnamese history.

Nguyen Thu Thuy reached out to fellow Vietnamese, as well as international artists for help in realizing her dream, and mural masters from all around the world started coming to Hanoi, to leave their mark on Ceramic Road. Some created contemporary design patterns, others used Vietnam’s history as inspiration, and even recreated famous paintings out of ceramic tiles. Nearly 100 artists, from countries like Mexico, Brazil, France, Denmark and many others participated in the creation of Ceramic Road.

The whole thing was completed on September 25, and on October 5, a representative of the Guinness Book of Records inspected Ceramic Road and acknowledged it as the longest mural in the world, spanning over 7,000 square meters. A window into Vietnam’s fascinating history, and an unbelievable artwork, Ceramic Road is set to become one of Vietnam’s most popular tourist attractions.

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I remember seeing a set of photos from Google’s offices in Zurich, and thought that was pretty cool, but Google has nothing on Inventionland’s fairytale workplace.

Inventionland, like the name suggests, is a company that invents stuff, over 2,000 new inventions every year. To come with that many inventions, the Inventionland team must really be inspired by something, but what could it be? Believe it or not, it’s actually everything that surrounds them in their Pittsburgh headquarters.

The 70,000 square feet facility looks like nothing you’ve ever seen before, featuring 15 different fantasy sets, from pirate ships to tree houses and even a house shaped like a giant shoe. And it’s not only the world’s most creative workplace, it’s also equipped with the latest in sound, video and animation technology to help creationeers come up with the best ideas. Oh, that’s right, Inventionland employees are called “creationeers”, they get to wear lab coats and they brainstorm for ideas in a room called “Inventalot”. Now, how cool is that!

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Five hundred people wearing yellow and black ponchos gathered in Orlando to create the world’s largest human smiley face. At fifty feet in diameter, the human smiley face was about the size of a basketball court.

On October 1st, in celebration of the World Smile Day, a giant smiley face was spotted on the top parking deck of the new Amway Center arena. It was made up of hundreds of smiling people dressed in black and yellow, who stood shoulder to shoulder for a good ten minutes. The human smiley face was a result of Orlando’s World Smile Search Campaign, which looked for people who had smile stories to share with the world. In half a year, over 20,000 stories were received, and some of the people who shared their stories were invited to be apart of the smiley face.

The human smiley face of Orlando was acknowledged as the largest smiley face in the world, but I seem to recall a very similar event took place in 2008, in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, and it looks like there were a lot more than 500 participants there. Maybe they just didn’t invite a Guinness official?

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Measuring a total of 22.43 meters in height, this detailed sand sculpture, created at the Zhoushan Sand Sculpture Festival, in China, has been acknowledged as the world’s tallest sand sculpture.

Officials from the Guinness Book of Records arrived in Zhoushan, on Wednesday, September 29, and after careful measurement, confirmed the sand masterpiece will be going into the record books. Depicting a Nigerian story of how a hummingbird managed to become the king of all animals, the 22.43 meter-tall sand sculpture was created by over 30 artists, during 75 days.

This year, the Zhoushan Sand Sculpture Festival gave sand artists the opportunity to express themselves on the theme of a trip to Africa.

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In an attempt to prove their products are by no means disposable, German car maker Smart has teamed up with a cardboard manufacturer and designer Sarah Illenberger to created the world’s first cardboard-wrapped Smart.

It might sound and look stupid, but this cardboard Smart aims to somehow disprove the rumors that Smart cars are disposable. They want to show the world that even covered by heaps of  high-quality reusable cardboard blocks, their Smart ForTwo model makes a lasting impression. I don’t know about the “lasting” part, but it’s definitely caught my attention.

Renowned designer Sarah Illenberger applied all the cardboard blocks by hand, in a pixel-like fashion that she feels emphasizes the sustainability of both the car and material.

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Scientist have recently discovered that the web of Darwin’s Bark Spider is the largest in the world, and is also ten times more resistant that Kevlar.

Igni Agnarsson, from the University of Puerto Rico, first discovered Darwin’s Bark Spider and their giant webs, back in 2001, and knew he had to return to Madagascar and study these little creatures further. He did just that in 2008 and 2010, and his research revealed some pretty incredible data.

While it isn’t exactly the largest spider known to man (the female is larger than the male, and it only measures 3-4 cm, with its legs outstretched), Darwin’s Bark Spider spawns giant webs that reach up to 25 meters in length, with a main core of around 2.8 square meters. With webs this size, it’s now wonder the silky substance can withstand twice as much force as a normal spider’s, which makes it 10 times stronger than a similar piece of Kevlar, and thus, the strongest biological material ever found.

How, and why Darwin’s Bark Spider creates these giant webs is still a secret, but the fact that they are usually found across rivers and lakes suggests they mean to capture big insects that spent their young lives in a water environment, trapping them right when they take to the air. Birds and bats also pass right above the water, but there’s yet no evidence the spider web could trap such large prey.

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Switzerland and Belgium may be the world’s most famous chocolate-making countries, but tiny Armenia has just stolen some of their spotlight by creating the largest chocolate bar, ever.

The sweet event took place in Armenia’s capital of Yerevan, and was organized by the Grand Candy Factory – a local chocolate making company – as a way to celebrate to celebrate its 10 years of existence. Guinness Book representatives were invited to take part in the unveiling of the chocolate monster created, and to make sure this event goes into the record books.

The giant chocolate bar weighs 4,400 kilograms, is 224 inches long, 110 inches wide, 10 inches thick and is made from cocoa beans from Ghana. In the following weeks, the world’s biggest chocolate down will be chipped into pieces and handed out to freely around Yerevan.

The previous record for the world’s biggest chocolate bar was set in 2007, in Italy.

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One of the wackiest competitions in the world, the World Gravy Wrestling Championship drew in quite a crowd this year, at the Rose n’ Bowl pub, in Stacksteads, Britain.

Over 1,000 people gathered at the famous Lancashire venue, to watch 24 competitors get down and dirty in a pool of gravy. All the contestants had to do to defeat their opponents was get most of the applause, after the 2 minute-long wrestling match. To do this, they wore funny costumes and tried to impress the audience by performing special moves.

Over 2,000 liters of past-its-before-date gravy was supplied for the 2010 World Gravy Wrestling Championship, all of it made following a special local recipe. Hopefully wrestlers didn’t swallow too much of it…

The World Gravy Wrestling Championship is a fun event that aims to raise money for charity, despite the competitive streak of most competitors. This year’s winners were Elliot Rooke, who was dressed as a bunny, and Elisa Samson, who wrestled as Little Bo Peep, in the ladies’ contest.

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