Herbivores At Risk Of Extinction
60% – Share of the planet’s largest herbivores, including elephants, gorillas and rhinos, at risk of extinction, according to a new study.
Read moreTag: facts
The Oldest Person In The World
The oldest person in the world, JeraleanTalley of Michigan, turned 116 last week. The two oldest persons ever known to science, Sarah Knauss of Pennsylvania and Jeanne Calment of France, reached 119 and 122, respectively.
Read moreOdds Of Being Killed At School
Yearly odds of a U.S. student being killed at school: 1 in 3 million
Read moreMissing Airplanes
Total number of passenger planes that have gone missing without a trace since 2000: 10
Read moreElephant slaughter
After decimating the Tanzanian elephant population, poachers have now killed half of the elephants in neighboring Mozambique in just five years. A survey by Mozambique’s government and the U.S.-based Wildlife Conservation Society found that the herd has shrunk from 20,000 in 2010 to just over 10,000 animals today. “This decline is due to rampant elephant poaching in the country’s most important […]
Read moreLong Dark Winter at the South Pole
Few people have traveled to the South Pole since Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott reached the bottom of the world in the austral summer of 1911-12. Fewer still stay for the six months of darkness in the winter at the South Pole. The first crew to winter at the South Pole was in 1957, but only 1,267 people have spent the […]
Read moreIslamic State and Social Media
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.
Read moreRatio of Shootings In Our Own Communities
Ratio of shooters in the U.S. who attack their own communities: 2 in 3
Read moreIt was a good week for . . .
. . . breathing deeply, after a Chinese travel company shipped bags of fresh mountain air to the smog-choked city of Zhengzhou as a treat for residents. “I felt my baby move right when I breathed in,” said a pregnant woman who waited on line for a sniff.
Read moreSecret Santa
An anonymous “Secret Santa” traveled to New Jersey and New York last week to hand out $100 bills to people who’d lost their homes and possessions in Hurricane Sandy. The Kansas City, Mo., businessman spent a day in Elizabeth, N.J., and Staten Island, N.Y., giving C-notes to the poor and homeless; he plans to give away $100,000 this holiday season. He was […]
Read more