Facts & Trends

British scientists invented a cellphone battery powered by urine. This “is about as eco as it gets,” said one researcher, noting that urine is a renewable resource ...

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 ...

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 ...

Florida Gov. Rick Scott, thought he was announcing the phone number of a meningitis hotline, but provided the number of a phone sex line.  Callers heard a woman say, “Hello, boys....” ...

A Paralympic medal winner who spent half her life in a wheelchair has made a miraculous recovery, and now hopes to represent her country in the Olympics.  Monique van der Vorst had been paralyzed from the waist down since the ...

"In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man.  If you want anything done, ask a woman." - Margaret Thatcher ...

Americans spend $100 billion annually on cocaine, heroin, pot and meth. Many users spend small amounts at a time—$10 may buy a day’s supply of heroin, for instance. But over time users may build a tolerance to a drug and ...

What's most important—and troubling— is the decades-long, systemic expansion of the economic distance between the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor, and the long, backward slide for the majority of those in-between ...

Authorities have removed crosses from dozens of churches in Lishui city as Zhejiang province bans crosses from the cityscape ...

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