A man in India now holds the Guinness World Record for the longest fingernails in the world. Wacky as it sounds, Shridar Chillal has spent the last 62 years growing his fingernails to be a cumulative 30 feet (9meters) long. Yes, you read that right 62 years without clipping!
We learned about this astounding and astonishing record from a really great article on the Live Science website.
The article reports:
Shridar Chillal hasn’t trimmed his claws in 62 years. The last time he put scissor to nail was 1952 (to place that in perspective, Harry Truman was president of the United States at the time, and gas cost 20 cents a gallon). As a result of Chillal’s refusal to trim, each of the fingers on his left hand ends in a swirling mass of keratin that cumulatively measures about 30 feet (9 meters) long.
Chillal’s extreme fingernails raise questions — lots of questions. How does he cut his food or answer his iPhone, for example? Furthermore, how is this even possible?
The article gets into the details of why humans have fingernails, how fast they can grow, and how long they can get. For those details and more info an pictures on this weird new Guinness record, see the excellent article on the Live Science website.
Source: LiveScience.com – “30-Foot Fingernails: The Curious Science of World’s Longest Nails“
Featured Photo Credit: Courtesy of Guinness World Records