Source: Amphibians Once Thought Extinct Rediscovered & Top 10 'Wanted Alive' Amphibians
2. In order to issue a claim with BP, a fishing license is needed. There was a 60% annual increase in fishing licenses issued AFTER the Deepwater Horizon incident
Source: Yahoo News
3. "[E]ngineers who studied traffic in California found that if we add 10 percent to the capacity of the highways, nine-percent more traffic will show up to drive on it."
Source: Traffic Jam: Build It and They Will Come
4. "In 2008, nearly 10 million more women than men voted, and most of those voted Democratic."
Source: Time Magazine, August 20, 2010; Page 14
5. "The wheat genome is the largest genome decoded to date. It is five times larger than the human genome and is known to be a very complex structure, comprised of three independent genomes."
Source: Wheat Genome may help tackle food shortages
6. Since 1950, 463 out of the 494 fugitives who have appeared on the FBI's Most Wanted list have been captured or located.
Source: 40 years later, Wis. bomber is a 'ghost'
7. The largest emerald ever discovered in North America is the 65 carat "Carolina Emperor" discovered on a farm in Hiddenite, NC.
Source: 'Emperor' Emerald Found in North Carolina
8. A new report issued by the Institute of Policy Studies "concludes that chief executives of the 50 firms that have laid off the most workers since the onset of the economic crisis in 2008 took home 42 percent more pay in 2009 than their peers at other large U.S. companies."
Source: CEOs lay off thousands, rake in millions
9. "More than half a million square miles of new farmland -- an area roughly the size of Alaska -- was created in the developing world between 1980 and 2000, of which over 80 percent was carved out of tropical forests, according to Stanford researcher Holly Gibbs."
Source: Most New Farmland in Tropics Comes from Slashing Forests, Research Shows
10. "In 2008 the average teacher earned $53,230; two full-time teachers married to each other and making average pay would rank among the richest 20 percent of households (2008 qualifying income: $100,240)."
Source: Newsweek September 13, 2010, "Why School 'Reform' Fails" page 21).
11. Although child labor is illegal there, UNICEF estimates that 20-25% of children in Kenya work.
Source: Boy earns 1 cent a goat in slaughter trade
12. Iraq and Iran share a 906 mile border that has not been redefined since 1975.
Source: Fortified border: Iraq on guard against Iran
13. During the 1940's, more than 1,600 Guatemalans were purposely infected with sexually transmitted diseases for an investigation, "called the U.S. Public Health Service Sexually Transmitted Disease Inoculation Study."
Source: US apologizes for infecting Guatemalans with STD's in the 1940s (CNN)
14. "Not counting Social Security, one in six Americans now receives some form of government assistance, including food stamps, Medicaid and extended unemployment benefits."
Source: Midnight grocery runs capture economic desperation (AP, By Anne D'Innocenzio & Dena Potter, 10/6/2010)
15. $18 million of stimulus funds were sent to dead people. Only about half of these checks were returned. "[T]here is no provision in the law to recover payments incorrectly sent to dead people."
Source: 72,000 stimulus payments went to dead people (Yahoo News, Stephen Ohlemacher, Oct. 7, 2010)
16. "A 2009 Army report found that for every 24 convoys delivering fuel to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, one soldier or civilian was killed in the process."
Source: U.S. military, Ask America voters see green future (Ask America, by Torrey Anderson-Schoepe)
___
U.N. eco-chief: 'We are destroying life on Earth' (MSNBC News Services, 10/18/2010)
Up until this point, every statistic that I have shared in this thread has been the only really interesting tidbit I discovered in the associated article. The above linked article, however, reads like one giant, devastating statistic. In reality, it contains several I feel we all should read.
17. "[Scientists] estimate that the Earth is losing species at 100 to 1,000 times the historical average and warn that's pushing the Earth toward its sixth big extinction phase, the greatest since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago."
18. "[O]f the 669 different kinds of primates, 49 percent are threatened, largely because of habitat destruction and hunting."
19. "A U.N.-backed study this month said global environmental damage caused by human activity in 2008 totaled $6.6 trillion, equivalent to 11 percent of global gross domestic product."
20. "The U.N. Environment Program says annual losses from deforestation and degradation are estimated at between $2 trillion and $4.5 trillion. Yet this could be tackled with annual investment of $45 billion."
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10/18
21. Twenty-nine: The number of frozen embryos "Octomom" Nadia Suleman still has available, should she decided to have more children.
Source: Octuplet mom's doctor faces license revocation hearing (CNN, Alan Duke, 10/18/2010)
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10/19
22. "In 2010, U.S. retailers lost about $40 billion in stolen goods, or 1.5% of the nation's total retail sales." This insane about of theft costs each American shopper $423 annually.
Source: Store theft costing your family budget $423 (CNN Money, by Parija Kavilanz, 10/19/2010)
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10/26
23. Out of 80,000 chemicals in use commercially, only 200 have been tested for toxicity. Of those, only 5 are currently restricted.
Source: Gupta: Chemicals around us - we must know more (CNN The Chart by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, 10/26/2010)
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10/27
24. It takes 1/5 of 1 second to fall in love. Twelve areas of the brain are involved in the process, "releasing euphoria-inducing chemicals like dopamine, oxytocin, adrenaline and vasopressin. Love's high is similar to cocaine's rush."
Source: Brain Takes Less Than Second to Fall in Love (Discovery News, by Liz Day, 10/26/2010)
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10/31
25. About 30% of households give out lollipops on Halloween, while a a vast majority (54%) give chocolate.
Source: Why Kids Pick Some Treats Over Others (Newsweek, by Pat Wingert, 10/30/2010)
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11/3
26. 73%: The percentage of Americans who have $100,000 in the bank at retirement. Of these, 27% of less than $1,000.
Source: My Dad's financial adviser
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11/7
27. The number of felines gracing the presence of Americans has increased by a surprising 18% in the past decade, bringing the total of pet cats to 86 million. 56% of cat owners decide to keep two cats simultaneously.
Source: TIME Magazine, "Kitty Prozac," by Andrea Sachs, November 15, 2010
28. Less than 1: The number of terms Sarah Palin completed as Alaska's governor.
Source: TIME Magazine, "North Star," by James Poniewozik, November 15, 2010
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11/9
29. "One study of more than 5,000 consumer products claiming to be ecofriendly found that 95 percent of the claims were misleading or false."
Source: Newsweek Index Scope, November 8, 2010
30. "55 percent of us would rather touch a public toilet seat than a hand that's been sneezed or coughed on."
Source: Newsweek Index Scope, November 8, 2010
31. The little cardboard tubes in the middle of our toilet paper rolls really add up to a lot of waste - 160 million pounds worth, according to Newsweek's Index Scope. Maybe my husband will stop laughing at me for recycling ours now!
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11/14
32. The world's longest tapeworm is 28 feet long, and on display in the Meguro Parasitological Museum in Tokyo. However, I would be much more inclined to visit The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore's 55 foot tall whirligig.
Source: The world's weirdest museums (MSNBC, by Atlasobsucra.com, 11/13/2010)
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11/16
33. Texas dishes out just $86.08 to execute a prisoner from death row. It costs $17,338 to keep the same prisoner alive in a cell for a year. This total is far below the national average of $28,689.
34. " Excell White, who killed four people in 1974 and wasn't executed until 1999, spent more time -- 8,854 days -- on death row before being put to death than any other Texas convict."
Source: Three decades after death sentence, Texas murder convict dies in cell (CNN, by Divina Mims, 11/15/2010)
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11/18
This article from Yahoo News by Hope Yen, titled "Four in 10 say marriage is becoming obsolete," is loaded with interesting statistics.
35. "About 29 percent of children under 18 now live with a parent or parents who are unwed or no longer married, a fivefold increase from 1960, according to the Pew report being released Thursday. Broken down further, about 15 percent have parents who are divorced or separated and 14 percent who were never married. Within those two groups, a sizable chunk — 6 percent — have parents who are live-in couples who opted to raise kids together without getting married."
36. About 39% of the Americans surveyed think marriage is obsolete today, compared to 28% in 1978.
37. Three out of five Americans believe homosexual couples with children constitutes a family.
38. Nine out of ten Americans join family members for a Thanksgiving meal, with the average table size being a dozen people.
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11/21
39. It cost AQAP just $4,200 to create and send the parcel bombs discovered October 29. It has cost the U.S. billions of dollars to ramp-up our security since then. According to Inspire magazine, a publication in Yemen driven by an American ex-patriot, this is exactly as our enemy planned.
Source: Magazine details al Qaeda cargo plane plots (CNN, 11/21/2010)
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11/22
Tigers could be extinct in 12 years if unprotected (Yahoo News, AP, by Irina Titova, 11/21/2010)
40. Today, I would like to share six tiger facts I just learned from reading the above linked article. I am going to number them 1-6, and consider this entire post one giant, startling stat we all should take very seriously.
1. 12 years: The amount of time until tigers will be extinct if current conditions persist.
2. Three: The number of tiger species, out of nine, that have already gone extinct in the past 70 years.
3. 40%: The percentage of tiger habitat lost in the past decade alone.
4. 13: The number of countries with tigers that have committed to save them.
5. $350 million: The amount of money these countries will need in outside donations.
6. 30%: The percentage of this funding that would go directly towards anti-poaching measures.
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11/25
41. 27% of people aged 18-24 are "too fat to join the military."
Source: Palin's reckless views on obesity, CNN, by Roland Martin, 11/24/2010)
(On a side note, notice the difference in intelligence levels evident in the Michelle Obama vs. Sarah Palin quotes from the source article.)
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12/24
42. From 2007-2009, the "average family's net worth plunged 41% -- to just $62,200." Meanwhile, the richest 1% of Americans experienced a 27% decline, to just $14 million. (CNN)
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12/28
43. Falling in love only takes 1/5 of 1 second.
(Source: A fifth of a second: Falling in love is more scientific than you think)
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12/31
44. It is projected that the U.S. will give Israel $3 billion in military aid in 2011. Egypt receives $1.3 billion each year from us. This seems bizarre and counter-productive, given the fact that both countries view each other as sworn enemies in a perpetual state of war.
(Source: WikiLeaks shows US frustrated with Egyptian military)
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1/3
45. The U.S. has a debt limit currently set at $14.294 trillion. This was set in February, 2010.
(Source: The war over spending)
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2/28
46. "Labor Department figures show that from 2007 to 2009, more than half the full-time workers who lost jobs and then found new work took pay cuts. A depressing 36% had to take positions paying 20% less than the ones they lost."
47. "According to Goldman Sachs, more than 70 million people in developing countries become middle-class consumers each year. That's great for us in some ways, because it means they'll have money to buy goods made by companies in the rich world. But it also means they'll have the skills necessary to do our jobs."
(Source: Your Incredible Shrinking Paycheck, by Rana Foroohar, 2/28/2011, Time.com)
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3/1
48. The populations of some big fish such as cod and tuna are estimated to have dropped by 2/3 or more. 54% of the decline in predatory fish has occurred in the past 40 years. "'We might need a shift in mindset to think of fish as a scarce resource rather than a global commons,'" said Jacqueline Adler from the UN Environmental Program.
(Source: Little Fish Exploding in Numbers, Models Show, by Charles Choi, 2/25/2011 NatGeo.com)
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3/14
Today's Color Line (The Nation, by Eric Foner, January 24, 2011)
49. A short article in the above noted Nation contained several facts folks should know:
- There have only been four African American governors, two of which were actually elected by the voters.
- Only 6 African Americans have ever served in the US Senate.
- Only three states have ever elected a black senator.
- In 2008, Obama won only 43 percent whites.
3/15
Kabuki Democracy --And How to Fix It (The Nation, by Eric Alterman, January 24, 2011)
50. The United States is the only country, out of 146, that does not provide free television campaign spots for political candidates.
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3/28
$3 billion owed in child support (Chicago Sun-Times, by Francine Knowles, 3/28/2011)
51. Children in Illinois are owed $3 billion in child support payments. One of the biggest factors contributing to this staggering statistic is unemployment. 57% of noncustodial parents have no reported income at all. An additional 28% make less than $30,000 annually. "The median amount owed in back support in Illinois, according to the Urban Institute study, was $4,467 in 2003-04. The average was $11,365. Mirroring a national trend, most of the arrearages were owed by a minority of parents who owe sizable sums. In Illinois, 10 percent of those owing back support were $30,000 or more in arrears, yet they owed nearly half of all the overdue support."
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4/1
Distracted driving - a 'deadly' epidemic (MSNBC, by Paul A. Einstein, 3/31/2011)
52. According to government statistics, "texting, cellphone use and other forms of distracted driving," were responsible for 5,500 deaths in 2009, and "at least a half million injuries." Think about that next time you answer that beep behind the wheel.
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4/8
Prison spending bleeds education system (CNN, by Todd Jealous and Rod Paige, 4/7/2011)
53. From 1987 to 2007, more than a million inmates were added to the prison system, more than tripling the population. "During the last two decades, state spending on prisons grew by 127%, six times the rate of spending on higher education."
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4/20
CEO pay dwarfs employee pay (CNN Money, by Jennifer Liberto, 4/20/2011)
54. In 2010, American CEOs earned an average of 343 times the average worker. "Their compensation was up 23% in 2010, compared to 2009." (I usually don't editorialize on this post, letting the stats speak for themselves but when I read this, I nearly puked.)
___
The 5 highest-paid CEO's (Yahoo News, by Zachary Roth, 5/9/2011)
55. I usually paraphrase, but this chart from Yahoo News does the job perfectly:
___Philippe Dauman, Viacom: $84.3 millionLawrence Ellison, Oracle: $68.6 millionLeslie Moonves, CBS: $53.9 millionMartin E. Franklin, Jarden: $45.2 millionMichael White, DirecTV: $32.6 millionCBS, of course, is a subsidiary of Viacom. So Dauman's company in fact accounts for two of the top five highest earners.
5/16
The Human Genome project's $800 billion economic impact (MSNBC, by Ariel Schwartz, 5/16/2011)
56. The Human Genome project has already had an $800 billion dollar economic impact. "The project has, in fact, driven $796 billion in economic impact and generated $244 billion in total personal income, according to a new report from Battelle."
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5/17
$67 billion in vacation days, out the window (CNN Money, by Jessica Dickler May, 5/25/2011)
Americans need a vacation. Check out these stats:
57. In 2010, Americans only used 14 of 18 of their allotted vacation days. Europeans seem to get, and use, much more. The French get 37 on average, and use 35. The British, 28 and 25 respectively.
58. The unused American vacation time mentioned above equates to 448 MILLION unused days, or $67.5 BILLION dollars in pay.
59. Even when we do get away, Americans tend to check in at the office quite a bit. In fact, 72% of Americans call the office at least "occasionally."
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5/30/2011
60. The number of children using mood and behavior modifying drugs has skyrocketed in recent years. Check out these quotes from a CNN story I found:
- "From 1999 to 2001, 0.78 per 1,000 children ages 2 through 5 used antipsychotic drugs. That rate increased to 1.59 by 2007, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry."
- "In a Columbia University study, the rates of antidepressant use increased among people age 6 and older from 5.84% in 1996 to 10.12% in 2005."
6/29
61. 3.1 million pregnancies in the United States are accidental. That is nearly HALF of the total.
(The Birth-Control Extremists, by Richard Morgan, Details Magazine, Aug, 2008)
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9/16/2011
62. According to an article I found on Yahoo News originally from the Wall Street Journal, 43% of the jobless benefits Indiana pays to its residents are in error. At first, this seems like a shocking number. But, reading on, I learned that Indiana has much more complicated and stringent benefit requirements than other members of the union with rates below 10%. The federal government is spending money to help states with the worst records, like Indiana. But by looking solely at the numbers, and not at the reasoning behind the math, resources may be wasted. This is a perfect example of why statistics should always be considered with a discerning mind.
(Billions in Unemployment Benefits Paid in Error, by Sara Murray, 9/15/2011)
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