Facts & Trends

There were 2.5 million emergency-room visits related to drug use in 2011—half for illegal drugs and half for misused medication. A third of patients had taken two or more substances: multiple drugs or drugs and alcohol ...

The 400 richest Americans have as much wealth as all 41 million African Americans ...

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 ...

Percentage of all criminal defendants in the United States who forgo a trial by pleading guilty: 97 Percentage of U.S. convicts exonerated last year who had previously pleaded guilty without a trial: 17 ...

To delay aging, spend more time standing up. That’s the surprising conclusion of a new study by Swedish scientists, reports The Daily Telegraph (U.K.). Researchers at Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm took blood samples from a group of sedentary, overweight ...

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 ...

If nightmares about Jaws are keeping you from taking a dip in the ocean, relax. You're much less appetizing than you think. 11: U.S. fatalities from sharks, 1990-2006 16: U.S. fatalities from collapsing sand holes, 1990-2006 1 in 310,733: Odds of dying in a fireworks accident 1 in 3,750,000: Odds of dying in a shark ...

The $9 billion, 1,000-ft. (305 m) Amazonian Tall Tower Observatory—now the tallest structure in South America—recently entered the final stages of construction. It will be inaugurated in August and fully operational by 2017. Here’s what Brazil and Germany, which co-funded ...

A California man has paid off a $14,000 property-tax bill using only dollar bills and loose change.  Larry Gasper says he wasn't deliberately trying to inconvenience county officials with the unorthodox payment, which he transported to county offices in a ...

Factor by which a placebo for Parkinson’s disease is more effective when the patient is told it costs $1,500 rather than $100: 2 ...