Briton astounds the world by becoming the first person to swim to North Pole

[MonkeyFunk]

Only a few seconds in the icy depths would be enough to kill most mere mortals.

But yesterday, protected by nothing more than a pair of Speedo trunks and his extraordinary central heating, Lewis Pugh took the plunge and became the first man to swim at the North Pole.

The 36-year-old Londoner spent almost 19 minutes at minus 1.8C as he front crawled for a full kilometre - more than half a mile in the coldest water a human has ever swum.

more at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/live/live.html?in_article_id=468256&in_page_id=1811&ito=1490

Yes, boys and girls. Santa's workshop is under water.

[rockymountaindem]

1. It's nice to know there are still some things that haven't been done yet

At least things that don't involve going to Mars.

[1620rock]

2. Global warming?

[Xithras]

5. Yes and no

It's normal for meltwater to form pools around the north pole during the high arctic summer, so there's nothing really abnormal about the fact that he found somewhere to swim. That said, the pools ARE getting a bit bigger, and are hanging around longer, thanks to global warming.

[BlooInBloo]

3. Thjnk I read somewhere that he's able to exert some control over his own body temp.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Here's a bit on that

Most people who attempted such a feat would drown within minutes as the intense cold disabled their muscles. Mr Pugh believes that he can raise his normal body temperature by one degree by concentrating on raising his heart rate.

Tim Noakes, of Cape Town University, an expert on the effects of cold water on the human body, monitored the swim and found that on leaving the water Mr Pugh’s body temperature had dropped to 36.5C. Twenty minutes later it had fallen even further to a dangerously low 35C, but within an hour it had recovered to a normal 37C.
...
Mr Pugh holds the record for the world’s most southerly swim, on the edge of the Antarctic ice sheet, and last year became the first person to swim the length of the Thames. He claims to be the only person to have completed a long-distance swim in each of the world’s five oceans.

He has already attracted the nickname “Polar Bear” for his cold-water swimming. He trained for his latest feat by eating five meals a day for three months and putting on 24 lb. Mr Pugh reached the Geographic North Pole by hitching a lift on an icebreaking ship sailing out of Murmansk in northern Russia.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2080612.ece

[pa28]

4. Incredible. It's like a (very cold) swimming pool up there.

I usually follow NOAA's north pole cam here: http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/gallery_np.html but due some "technical difficulties" they explain on the site there have been no pictures recently.

Maybe the difficulty is the camera is under water.

[fudge stripe cookays]

6. That's INSANE!

5 minutes in the English Channel and I was a fudgecicle!

That dude has some brass cojones, that's for sure.

[MonkeyFunk]

8. I imagine

his cojones are lodged up near his diaphragm.