Facts & Trends

The average American woman now weighs 166.2 pounds, about the same as the average American man weighed in the early 1960's.  Over the same time period, U.S. men have gained nearly 30 pounds, from 166.3 in the '60's to 195.5 ...

A quarter-century has passed since the meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant unleashed a radioactive cloud across the northern hemisphere.  A new study estimates that 27,000 people have died worldwide as a result of the worst nuclear accident in ...

Reduced awareness Brain imaging shows that it’s harder for people who are high to focus on several things at once, such as a changing stoplight, an approaching bicycle and a car signaling a turn. Hallucinations Research is sparse, but pot-related cases ...

Estimated minimum gallons of water used annually to produce Coca Cola products: 8,000,000,000,000 Portion of the world’s population that amount would supply with drinking water each year: 1/4 ...

A bungling British burglar who volunteered to be fitted with a police GPS tracker was arrested after he carried out a string of burglaries while wearing the device.  Nicholas Broadley, 33, wore the tracker as part of a program to help ...

The two deadliest drugs in America are both legal.  Tobacco kills more than 500,000 Americans a year.  Alcohol is linked to 88,000 deaths a year (including those caused by drunk driving and violent behavior) and more than 4.6 million emergency ...

Lake Mead, the main reservoir on the Colorado River, is now just 38 percent full — lower than at any time since it was filled in the 1930's.  If the lake sinks lower still during summer months, officials may cut ...

Portion of the Indian Ocean that is underexplored by scientists because of pirates: 1/4 ...

Portion of Americans who say they would ride in driverless cars if the technology were available: 1/2 Who say they would get memory chips installed in their brains: 1/4 ...

The rate of U.S. diagnoses for melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, has doubled in the past 30 years, from 11.2 cases per 100,000 people in 1982 to 22.7 cases per 100,000 in 2011, according to a Centers for ...