The highest speed attained by a destroyer was 45.25 knots (83.42 km/h or 52 mph) by the 2,900 tonne (6.4 million lb) French ship Le Terrible in 1935. Built in Blainville, France and powered by four Yarrow small tube boilers and two Rateau geared turbines, giving 74,570 kW (100,000 shp), she was decommissioned at the end of 1957.
The fastest ever speed attained cycling downhill on snow or ice is 222 km/h (138 mph), by Eric Barone (France) at Les Arcs, France on 21 April 2000.
6:38.78 Georgina Evers-Swindell, Caroline Evers-Swindell (both New Zealand) Seville, Spain 21 September 2002
6:10.02 Mads Rasmussen and Rasmus Quist (Denmark) Amsterdam, Netherlands 23 June 2007
The fastest time to complete an Easy Sudoku puzzle is 2 min 8.53 sec by Thomas Snyder (USA) at BookExpo America, Washington DC, USA on 20 May 2006. The attempt was carried out under the auspices of the International Sudoku Organisation and the puzzles were created by Sudoku Grand Master Mike Mepham. Thomas Snyder is American champion and was the second-place finisher at the first World Sudoku Championships in Lucca, Italy in March 2006.
The fastest speed at which a spacecraft has ever departed from Earth is 58,338 kph (36,250 mph). It was achieved by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, which launched from Cape Canaveral on 19 January 2006, beginning a nine-year flight to the planet Pluto and its moons. Pluto is the only planet in the Solar System yet to be surveyed by a spacecraft.
The fastest driven square lap in a vehicle is 19.31 seconds and was achieved by Mitsubishi Motors North America in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, on 15 January 2011. The attempt took place adjacent to the frozen Ghost Lake outside Calgary and was filmed for a Mitsubishi television commercial.
The fastest electric motorcycle is the SWIGZ Electric Superbike Prototype (USA), which achieved a speed of 316.899 kmh (196.912 mph) in the flying kilometre, ridden by Chip Yates (USA), at Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, USA, on 30 August 2011. The record was achieved at the International Speed Trials for Motorcycles, Yates has also raced the machine at the Pikes Peaks hill climb setting a course record for an electric motorcycle of 12 min 50.094 sec
The fastest electric locomotive is the multi-system electric 1216 050 (type ES 64 U4), built by Siemens and owned by Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB). The locomotive, driven by Alex Dworaczek from Munich (Germany), reached a speed of 357.0 km/h (221.82 mph) on the high speed line Ingolstadt – Nuremberg, in Germany, on 2 September 2006.
The fastest eater amongst mammals is the star-nosed mole (Condylura cristata). Research published in February 2005 by Dr Kenneth Catania (USA) at Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, USA, recorded an average ‘handling time´ of 230 milliseconds with the fastest time being 120 milliseconds. ‘Handling time’ is defined as being from the point of identifying food as edible, capturing it and eating it, until moving on to search for the next piece of food. In the research, high-speed cameras were used to film the moles in slow motion.
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