Americans drink far less today than our predecessors did. In 1830, the average American drank the equivalent of 7.1 gallons of pure alcohol per year. In 2013, by comparison, the average American drank the equivalent of 2.34 gallons of pure alcohol.
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The Department of Defense has 562,000 military bases and facilities located around the world, which collectively cover 24.7 million acres—nearly the size of Virginia. Much of that space is now unused, but Congress has barred the Pentagon from conducting a detailed assessment out of fear that bases in home districts would be closed.
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A Middle Eastern company has unveiled a fetching new line of Lycra leotards for racing camels to improve their performance on the track. Camel racing is popular across the Arab world, and Abu Dhabi based firm Al-Shibla says its compression suits can give an animal an edge by boosting blood flow to muscles. But the company is also pitching its […]
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The riskiest hour of the week for fatal traffic accidents is 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. on Saturday. The safest day for driving: Tuesday.
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52: Number of unprovoked shark attacks in the U.S. last year (compared with 20 elsewhere in the world). None were fatal. 28: Number of attacks in Florida, the most of any state. Runners-up were Hawaii (seven), South Carolina (five), California (four) and North Carolina (four). 65%: Percentage of attacks involving surfers (or people doing other board sports); 32% involved swimmers. The rest involved […]
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Sorry, science-fiction fans: Time travel is impossible. That is the sobering conclusion, anyway, of a Hong Kong-based team of physicists. They found that the maximum speed of a single photon, the basic unit of light, “obeys the traffic law of the universe,” Agence France-Presse reports. The photon cannot go faster than the speed of light—186,282 miles per second—and thus provides […]
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Pope Francis accidentally cursed in Italian while delivering his weekly blessing at the Vatican, using the word cazzo, the equivalent to the F-bomb, rather than caso, which means “example.”
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The Economist Intelligence Unit ranked more than 130 cities from most to least expensive, according to a survey of prices across 160 goods and services. Here’s a sampling: 1 – Singapore 2 – Paris 9 – Seoul 22 – New York City
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Jamie Fox, a 22-year-old from Great Britain with a degree in music, was given a job as a human scarecrow on a farm. Fox will make $400 a week scaring off partridges by playing an accordion, ukulele, and cowbell.
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The almost-bankrupt Italian city of Naples began DNA-testing dog feces on its poop-covered sidewalks, so it can prosecute residents who don’t pick up. “I know some people find it funny that with all the problems the city has, we would focus on dog poop,” said an official.
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