Facts & Trends

A new study has calculated that there are 5.25 trillion small and large pieces of plastic, weighing a total of 269,000 tons, floating in the world's oceans ...

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and its supporters produce as many as 90,000 tweets and other social media posts every day. The U.S. State Department is now assigning 80 people to counter ISIS's propaganda on Twitter and Facebook ...

According to the U.N., India has 13 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities. Low vehicle-emission standards, booming industrialization, crowded cities and the burning of trash means that the vast majority of Indians breathe unsafe air ...

44%: Percentage of U.S. firms since 2008 that have reduced their head counts in part because of automation ...

Nearly 50% of American adults now use some form of alternative medicine, spending an estimated $27 billion a year on herbal and other supplements and on such treatments as acupuncture, chiropractic, and energy healing ...

About a dozen inmates die behind bars each day, or about 4,400 jail and prison inmates each year. In jails, suicide is the leading cause of death ...

Estimated amount of gasoline wasted in U.S. traffic jams each day, in gallons: 12,600,000 ...

By 2021, the White House forecasts, the U.S. will be spending more on interest for the national debt than on the entire defense budget ...

The FBI has files on roughly 77.7 million people in the U.S.—the equivalent of one in three American adults. As many as 12,000 new names are added to its master criminal database every day, largely as the result of minor arrests ...

Portion of Americans who are currently taking at least one prescription drug: 1/2 Who are taking five or more: 1/10 Estimated number of U.S. children aged two or three being prescribed ADHD medication: 14,000 ...