Pleading Guilty
Percentage of all criminal defendants in the United States who forgo a trial by pleading guilty: 97 Percentage of U.S. convicts exonerated last year who had previously pleaded guilty without a trial: 17
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Underwater Mining
Number of square miles of seabed in international waters that were under contract for mining operations in 2000: 0 That are today: 463,323
Read moreCalorie Information
Chance that an American fast-food customer uses posted calorie information to make food buying decisions: 1 in 6
Read moreRich America
The 400 richest Americans have as much wealth as all 41 million African Americans.
Read moreProtests in Australia
A new wave of demonstrations across Australia is planned for June after the government of Western Australia moved to close remote Aboriginal settlements, saying it could no longer afford to subsidize communities plagued by social problems such as alcohol and drug abuse.
Read moreA bad year for bees
Colony collapse disorder, the mysterious scourge that has been killing off honeybees since 2005, has suddenly become a lot more deadly. This past winter, as many as half of all hives succumbed to the disorder—up from one third annually in recent years, and between 5 and 10 percent when hives were healthy. “It is a catastrophe in progress,” beekeeper Steve […]
Read moreVoyager 1 Escaping Our Solar System
On the 35th anniversary of its launch, the Voyager 1 spacecraft is close to becoming the first man-made object to escape our solar system. The spacecraft—run by a 1977 computer 100,000 times less powerful than an iPod Nano—is currently 11.3 billion miles away. In 2004, Voyager 1 entered the turbulent boundary zone beyond Pluto, where solar winds encounter plasma pushing […]
Read moreA Plastic World
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
Read moreAbstinence From Smiling
A British woman has abstained from smiling for the last 40 years in an extreme attempt to ward off wrinkles. Tess Christian, 50, told the Daily Mail that she adopted a permanent poker face as a child to prevent laughter lines around her mouth, eyes, and forehead. “My dedication has paid off,” she said. “I don’t have a single line […]
Read moreOh, That Smell
A specimen of the world’s largest flower, the titan arum, is about to bloom at the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C. To attract carrion insects, the flower emits a stench botanists likened to “a very dead elephant.”
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