Facts & Trends

Russia’s secret service ordered dozens of electric typewriters, saying that recent revelations about the U.S. National Security Agency’s online surveillance program made them distrust computer communications ...

Astronomers have spotted the most enormous black holes ever detected, inspiring new theories about how such pockets of extreme gravity form. Together, the two objects, which are roughly 300 million light-years away, have more mass than 30 billion suns, University ...

Number of U.S. prisoners exonerated last year: 125 Percentage of those exonerations in which no crime had occurred: 44 ...

Amateur astronomers can now put their observations to good use through the new Asteroid Data Hunter app.  The software, which works on almost any Windows or Mac computer, is a collaborative effort between NASA and Planetary Resources, a company that ...

Homeowners in Centennial, Colo., woke up to a pleasant surprise last Sunday morning: a group of teens who went around shoveling their neighbors' sidewalks and driveways free of charge. "They did everything: the whole driveway, the stoop, the whole sidewalk," ...

A Spanish long-distance runner showed exemplary sportsmanship last month when he helped a confused rival finish before him.  Iván Fernández Anaya was in second place to Olympic bronze medalist Abel Mutai in a race in Navarre, Spain, when he noticed ...

Bird calls, after firefighters in Idaho rushed into a burning building when they heard voices calling “Help! Fire!” only to discover a pair of “talking” parrots.  “There was nobody besides the birds inside,” said one fireman. “Smart birds.” ...

Almost one in five women—19.3 percent—has been raped, and 44 percent have suffered sexual violence, according to a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly half of the women who were raped identified the perpetrator as a ...

Colony collapse disorder, the mysterious scourge that has been killing off honeybees since 2005, has suddenly become a lot more deadly. This past winter, as many as half of all hives succumbed to the disorder—up from one third annually in ...

Portion of Americans who live in areas harmful levels of air pollution: 1/2 Number of the top five most polluted cities in the country that are in California: 5 ...