Did You Know That...

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34,000 sq km: The amount of Arctic ice lost on average each year between 1978 and 1996

9/99


		18.3 m: The length of one side of a cube contain all the gold ever mined. It would fit under the base of the Eiffel Tower.

		2.5 m: The altitude attained by the Roton, the first privately built crewed spacecraft, when tested by the Rotory Rocket Company last month.

		300 million: The number of people who take foreign vacations each year. Five million of them will develop severe attacks of diarrhea

		156 kg: The average weight of top sumo wrestlers this year, up from 126 kg in 1974. The athletes are becoming so heavy their muscles cannot support them.

		10: The number of hours per week that men spend doing household chores. Women put in 17.5 hours.


		1.9 million: The number of years since man first cooked vegetables, which scientists say lead to better nutrition and human development.

		0.5%: The reduction in global carbon emissions last year.

		4,000: The number of Australian war veterans due to receive government subsidized Viagra to treat impotence resulting from combat disabilities.

		$ 90,000.00: The price paid by a Japanese businessman to a Tokyo pet shop for a giant stag beetle.

		82%: The increase in likelihood of non-smoking men suffering a stroke as a result of passive smoking, according to New Zealand researchers.

		2 million: The number of people required to gather the 1991 census of India's population, which will hit 1 billion in May next year.

		500: The population of Japan in the year 3,000 if the birth rate continuous at 1.4 per woman and the country's immigration policy is unchanged.

		100: The multiplier of fungal spores present in ballet dancers' shoes, compared to those in the trainers of runners.

		3: The number of cubs born to a giant panda at the Chengdu Giant Panda Research Center, China, the first panda triplets to have been born in captivity.

		8.2 million: The number of children under five in the Democratic Republic of Congo immunized against polio in a three-day period.

		2 tons: The quantity of yogurt to be produced daily using bacteria from the guts of Russian astronauts.

		1 million: the number of people who have signed up to search, via their computers, for intelligent life in space.

		23%: Portion of the Irish adult population that is functionally illiterate. Only Poland, with an illiteracy rate of 42%, ranks higher among developed European countries.

		4.9%: The Japanese unemployment rate for June/99, a record high.

		$4.5 million: Amount of compensation to be paid by the U.S. government to victims of the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

		60: The number of North Koreans who have defected to South Korea so far this year.

		$90,686.00: Amount of the penalty imposed last week by a U.S. federal judge against President Bill Clinton for his false testimony about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

		$204.7 million: Total Vatican revenues for 1998. The Holy See spent $203.2 million, leaving a surplus of just over $1.5 million.

		37%: Proportion of Americans who believe the Internet should be controlled by an independent regulatory body.

		71%: Proportion of Germans who feel the same way.

		3: The age, according to Amnesty International, of a girl detained for five days by the Burmese government. Burma's military regime denied that the child had ever been in custody.

Heart

5 P.M.: The best time of day to make love if you want to make babies, according to Italian researchers.

		40 million: The number of users of Microsoft's Hotmail e-mail service temporarily disconnected after the system's security was breached by hackers.

		$5.2 million: The amount owned by President and Mrs. Clinton in legal fees. Last week they bought a house in New York state for $1.7 million.

		60 million: The estimated number of people aged 15 to 24 around the world who are looking for work but cannot find it.

		$4.14 million: The price paid at auction last week by an unnamed buyer for a silver dollar minted in 1834, more than double the previous record for a rare coin.

		360,000: The number of conscripts available to the Swiss army, whose professional soldiers total a mere 3,300.

		3 million: The estimated of people who have died as a result of earthquakes since 1900.

		7: The number of major ecological disasters, possibly volcanic eruptions, that have changed the course of earth's history over the past 300 million years.

		9/9/99: This years date, which could confuse computers and give companies a foretaste of Y2K bug problems. (We know- nothing happened)

		1.12 billion tons: The volume of the world's oceans that disappears under the earth's crust each year. Only 0 .23 billion tons reappear.

		$43 million: The estimated cost to Britain's farmers for cattle "passports" from the government to prove their animals are free of mad-cow disease.

		19: The maximum number of hyperlinks to connect any two pages of the Web's 800 million document.

		$1.4 billion: The estimated reduction in Australian health costs due to the psychic benefit of pet ownership.

		2: The number of loads of Ukrainian mushrooms turned back by French customs when they were discovered to be four times over an acceptable level of radioactivity.


		40 km by 35 km: The area covered by Sungbo's Eredo, a huge earthen wall and ditch fortification in Nigeria, which is Africa's largest ancient monument.

		$25 billion: The aggregated costs to the global economy of the estimated 40 million blind people worldwide.

		50: The number of notes, over two octaves, that make up the earth's background hum, a low frequency noise identified by Japanese geophysicists.

		April 21, 899 B.C.: The date of the earliest documented solar eclipse, according to Chinese astronomers.

Sources: The Times; Geophysical Research Letters, New Scientist; The Independent; Worldwatch Institute; Reuters; Associated Press; The Observer; World Health Organization; New Scientist; The Daily Telegraph; United Nation Human Development Program; The Wall Street Journal Europe; Evening Standard, International Labor Organization; Evolutionary Catastrophes; Evening Standard; Independent on Sunday; Nature; Society for Companion Animal Studies; The Guardian; Eurostat; UNAIDS/WHO;

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Revised: December 30, 2007 .