Behavior/Humans

Meet the World's Tallest and Shortest Individuals!

Both from the same region of China

By Stefan Anitei, Science Editor

28th of July 2007, 09:57 GMT

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This is really interesting: the world's tallest and shortest living individuals are not only both from China, but also from the same region, Inner Mongolia.

Bao Xishun, 56, also named Xi Shun or "The Mast", a 7-foot-9 in herdsman (2.36 m) from Inner Mongolia was confirmed in 2005 by Guinness

World Records as the world's tallest living man.

Bao has no growth disorder like gigantism; he reached his height in a seven-year growth spurt that began when he was 16 and which doctors cannot explain. After a career in the army, where he was recruited for a basketball team, he retreated due

to rheumatism condition and he returned to Inner Mongolia where he works in publicity stunts in addition to herding livestock.

In December 2006, he was asked to help rescue two dolphins at the Royal Jidi Ocean World aquarium, Fushun City, Liaoning, China. The mammals had ingested pieces of plastic and got sick. Doctors at the aquarium could not use surgical instruments to remove the plastic, because the dolphins' stomachs contracted in response to the instruments and the arms of ordinary people were too short to reach the stomachs.

Using his super-long arms, 41.7-inch (1.05 m) in length, Bao reached the plastics in the dolphins' stomachs and pulled them out.

In 24 March 2007 Bao got married to a 28-year-old Chinese woman of normal height. Bao appears in the movie Rush Hour 3.

19-year-old He Pingping, of just 73 centimeters (2.4 feet), is applying for the Guinness World Record as the world's shortest man. He is a native of Huade county, Wulanchabu city, also Inner Mongolia. His father, He Yun, said that, at birth, he was only the size of an adult's palm.

He has two sisters of normal height which are now married. He Pingping suffers from a bone condition called Osteogenesis Imperfecta which impedes the normal growth of bone and bodily height.

This month, Bao and He have had a televised meeting that attracted global media attention.

TAGS:

human | bone | height | rheumatism

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