Driving Days
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.
Read moreTag: trends
U.S. Shark Attacks
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 […]
Read moreSlow TV
An Icelandic public broadcast station aired 24 hours of live sheep birthing, part of its “slow TV” campaign, which also featured chess, knitting, and wood-burning.
Read moreStairway to heaven
A ladder might be installed near the peak of Mount Everest. Authorities in Nepal say the ladder would provide a shortcut over a steep cliff, and thus ease congestion near the 29,035-foot-high summit of the world’s tallest mountain.
Read moreTime travel
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 […]
Read moresubways “teeming with life”
Researchers who swabbed and tested DNA from surfaces in New York City’s subway system identified 562 species of bacteria, including microbes from mozzarella, sausage, hummus, kimchi, sauerkraut, rats, mice, and lice. Geneticist Christopher E. Mason said the bacteria found were not sufficient to cause disease, but that his work revealed the subways to be “teeming with life,” like “a rain […]
Read moreDepression – Women vs. Men
“When women are depressed, they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country.” – Elayne Boosler
Read moreColorado Secessionists
Representatives from eight rural Colorado counties began making plans to form a breakaway state, North Colorado, to escape the state’s gun-control laws and oil-industry regulations. “This is not a stunt,” said Weld County Commissioner Sean Conway. “Our very way of life is under attack.”
Read moreUs vs. Them
Percentage of Americans and Chinese, respectively, who believe their government is “on the side of average citizens”: 12, 80 Who believe their government is “on the side of corporations”: 73, 17
Read moreMissing Airplanes
Total number of passenger planes that have gone missing without a trace since 2000: 10
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