Facts & Trends

A 60-year-old Dutch man received a brain implant to cure his obsessive-compulsive disorder, and suddenly became a fanatical Johnny Cash fan. The patient said his doctors, “kept listening simply and solely to Johnny Cash.” ...

China has surpassed Mexico as the largest source of new U.S. immigrants.  China was the country of origin for 147,000 immigrants in 2013, compared with Mexico at 125,000, according to a new U.S. Census Bureau study ...

As the population ages and lives longer, dementia has become one of the country's most expensive medical conditions, with $109 billion in direct medical costs in 2010, a new RAND study found. The medical cost of dementia exceeds that of ...

12-year-old Jaxxyn Wood of Kentucky stayed up to 3 a.m. playing computer games and smelled an electrical fire in the kitchen.  He woke his family and got all nine people to evacuate, thus saving their lives ...

A growing numbers of drought-afflicted California farmers began hiring dowsers to locate underground water.  “Scientists don’t believe in it,” said vintner Marc Mondavi, “but I do and most of the farmers in the [Napa] Valley do.” ...

Percentage of British businessmen who travel with their teddy bears: 25 Percentage of British men who say they share  “all their secrets” with their teddy bears: 15 ...

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 ...

A cybersecurity firm has traced scores of attacks on U.S. corporate and government computers to a single building in Shanghai. The security firm, Mandiant, found that the attacks originated in a 12-story building known as the headquarters of People’s Liberation ...

From 2000 to 2013, advertising revenue for America's newspapers fell $40 billion—from $63.5 billion to $23 billion, according to a new report by the Brookings Foundation. At the same time, Google's ad revenue has soared to $57.9 billion ...

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....” ...