This is a fun story. It’s like a Guinness book entry, but i doubt it will ever reach well known status like the world’s fattest twins.  from todayinsci.com,

In 1981, Nature published the longest scientific name in history. With 16,569 nucleotides, the systematic name for human mitochondrial DNA is 207,000 letters long.

The next moment makes me all flushed and goose pimply. Maybe it’s from watching too much of When We Left Earth?

In 1959, NASA announced the selection of America’s first seven astronauts for project Mercury. Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald Slayton were chosen from 110 applicants. Their training program at Langley, which ranged from a graduate-level course in introductory space science to simulator training and scuba-diving. Project Mercury, NASA’s first high profile program, was an effort to learn if humans could survive in space. NASA required astronaut candidates to be male, not older than 40 years of age, not more than 5′ 11″ height and in excellent physical condition. On 5 May 1961, Shepard became the first American in space.

I have actually been in the company of a NASA astronaut, and let me tell you, Lee M.E. Morin was not a normal human. He was huge, 6 foot 100, intensely bright and every story he told about his adventures out of our orbit were immensely captivating; including going to the bathroom or shaving.  Astronauts are not only physical specimens of excellence, they are super scientists as well. You don’t hear that enough. 

Watch some When We Left Earth: