Real Life Cost of the Destruction of New York in 'The Avengers': $160 Billion

Sure, The Avengers took in over $700 million worldwide since its release on Friday, but how much would the movie's destruction of midtown Manhattan cost if it happened in real life? 

By Dino Grandoni

May 8, 2012

Less Than 22% of Girls and Women Complete Their HPV Vaccines

Our takeaway from a new study on HPV? We all seem to have forgotten about HPV.

Comments | 179 Views

By Dino Grandoni

May 7, 2012

'Mad Men' Paid The Beatles $250,000 for Historical Authenticity

Was it worth it for Mad Men to drop a reported $250,000 to play The Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows" as the end of Sunday's episode? We're guessing it was.

Comments | 6,349 Views

By Dino Grandoni

May 4, 2012

A Vanity Wikipedia Entry Will Cost You $300

Now that there's a company out there willing to make you Wikipedia famous, for a price, we get an idea of how much an entry in the Internet's de-facto library costs. Turns out it's $300.

Comments | 5,558 Views

By Dino Grandoni

May 3, 2012

70% of Campaign Ads Have Been Negative So Far

As if anyone watching needed confirmation of the very negative tone the 2012 election has taken, a new report from the Wesleyan Media Project notes that 70 percent of TV spots aired so far for the presidential race have been negative.

Comments | 157 Views

By Dino Grandoni

May 2, 2012

How a Rip in This Picasso is Worth $7.5 Million

Normally our minds would be boggled at the thought of a mere rip costing millions of dollars, but when it's in a Pablo Picasso masterpiece, it starts to make sense.

Comments | 2,069 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Apr 25, 2012

41% of Americans Live in Counties with Dangerous Levels of Air Pollution

Today, the American Lung Association released its State of the Air 2012 report, on the quality of the air in the U.S., and as these things tend to go, the good news is always tempered with some bad.

Comments | 2,286 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Apr 23, 2012

53.6% of Young Graduates Can't Get Good Jobs

Just how bad is it out there for young college graduates? Bad. Really bad.

Comments | 9,825 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Apr 20, 2012

Polar Bears, As a Species, Are 5 Times Older Than Previously Thought

The polar bear has a become an (insufferably cute) symbol of global warming -- meaning we were extra keen on reading into a new study, published in Science, on the genetic origins of these Coke-drinking cuddlers, looking for insight on how climate change will affect them.

Comments | 3,831 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Apr 19, 2012

Sorry, Mum: 1 in 10 U.K. Sexts Are Sent to Wrong Phone Numbers

Reason No. 453 to never ever ever! send a sext? There's a significant chance that you'll end up sending your sexplicit message to the wrong person.

Comments | 1,035 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Apr 17, 2012

Leon Panetta's Weekend Commutes Cost As Much As That GSA Party

That Leon Panetta has spent an incredible $860,000 to fly between his day job in Washington and his home in Northern California since taking office may not exactly be his fault, but even the thrifty secretary of defense himself this week can't help but notice the irony of that flight bill.

Comments | 1,498 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Apr 16, 2012

4,300 Runners Skipped the Boston Marathon

Want another sign that this winter was more like a spring and this spring is more like a summer? Just look at the Boston Marathon, a usually great sporting tradition in the great sports town, made slightly less great this year when only 22,426 of the 26,716 registered runners showed up for the sweltering race today.

Comments | 26,430 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Apr 13, 2012

20.6% of U.S. Health Care Costs Are Caused by Obesity

America, we've told you this before. You've put on a few these past few decades. And beside those new pairs of jeans you had to buy, we now know just how much your ever-expanding waist is costing you in yet another way: Doctor's bills.

Comments | 4,304 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Apr 10, 2012

8 Black College Students, Stopped-and-Frisked by the NYPD 92 Times

Sure, it's an informal survey, but a New York Times reporter's finding that eight black college students he spoke to have been stopped by police a collective 92 times is still a disturbing reminder of how the NYPD wields its stop-and-frisk tactics too heavily against the city's minorities.

Comments | 2,820 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Mar 28, 2012

$1,000-a-Day Off of Spamming Pinterest Is Too Good to Be True

The incredible $1,000-a-day windfall one man named "Steve" claimed to make by spamming Pinterest users turned out to be just that -- not very credible.

Comments | 1,482 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Mar 27, 2012

Top 100 Apps in the iPad's Newsstand Bring in $70,000 a Day Combined

iPads are often heralded as the future of newspapers and magazines, which may very well be true, but be sure to remember that journalism in tablet-form is still pretty young. Case in point: news apps on the iPad still make a fraction of the revenue that print circulation does.

Comments | 4,110 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Mar 26, 2012

Six Hours of Oral Arguments Over Obamacare Are the Longest in 45 Years

The import of Supreme Court decisions usually can't be fully felt until years after they're made, but there's one early sign that the case deciding the fate of the Affordable Care Act will be a doozy.

Comments | 1,030 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Mar 22, 2012

Hackers Broke into 174 Million Accounts in 2011

The release of Verizon's annual "Data Breach Investigations Report" gives some numeric confirmation that 2011 was indeed "The Year of the Hack," as some observers (including us) maintained.

Comments | 1,203 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Mar 21, 2012

Ron Paul's Website Gets More Visitors Than Any of His GOP Rivals'

Ron Paul may be dead-last among the major GOP candidates in the all-important delegate count, but he's winning the Republican race in at least one place: Web traffic.

Comments | 1,963 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Mar 20, 2012

62% of Voters Are Unfazed by the Seamus the Dog Story

There's some sad news for Gail Collins this morning. While 68 percent of voters agree with The New York Times columnist that it is not "humane to put your family dog in a kennel on the roof of your car for a long car trip," 62 percent also say they wouldn't hold it against Mitt Romney.

Comments | 1,210 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Mar 15, 2012

'Non-Humans' Account for 51% of All Internet Traffic

By one study's measure, slightly more than half of all the Internet's traffic comes from computers not being used by fleshy humans that might actually purchase products.

Comments | 3,602 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Mar 6, 2012

Women with Access to the Pill Earned 8% More Than Those Without

A group of economists has found that women who had better access to the Pill were earning 8 percent more than those who didn't by the time they reached age 50.

Comments | 2,572 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Mar 5, 2012

Only 16 Percent of Released Gitmo Prisoners Become Terrorists Again

Giving yet another cause for pause in the constitutionally dubious detainment of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, a relatively small portion of those released  -- 16 percent -- go on to become terrorists again.

Comments | 1,276 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Mar 1, 2012

Canadians Like the Internet 17% More Than Americans

For a respite from the usual way North America's biggest rivalry plays out, today we learn which nation, the United States or Canada, goes on the Internet most.

Comments | 1,420 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Feb 29, 2012

Mom and Daughter Had a 1-in-2.1-Million Chance of Sharing a Leap Day Birthday

On February 29, 2008, Michelle Birnbaum gave birth on her own birthday, meaning that four years later we would get to read about how unlikely it was for this mother-daughter pair to share a Leap Day birthday.

Comments | 996 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Feb 28, 2012

West Virginia Meth Lab Busts Are Tracking at More Than One a Day

Today in depressing statistics, we have the number of meth labs busted in West Virginia so far this year. Unfortunately, it is a lot.

Comments | 2,841 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Feb 24, 2012

'Calvin and Hobbes' Watercolor Sells for $107,550

We're pretty big Calvin and Hobbes fans here, so if we had the money we think we might have paid more than $107,550 for an original Bill Watterson watercolor of the philosophical six-year-old and stuffed tiger duo.

Comments | 6,121 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Feb 23, 2012

New York City Made $190,000 Off of Gay Marriages Last Year

Yet again, we're shown that gay marriage is one of those topics on which social and fiscal conservatives don't quite align.

Comments | 2,423 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Feb 22, 2012

81.9% of Former U.S. House Staffers Going Into Lobbying Went Corporate

If you follow Washington politics, something you've likely suspected can now be confirmed. According to a new analysis, most ex-staffers of U.S. representatives going lobbying worked for corporations.

Comments | 1,787 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Feb 21, 2012

Cell Networks Lost $13.9 Billion to Social Media Apps in 2011

Proving yet again that the Internet offers free alternatives for things one used to have to pay for (see: the newspaper), a new report today says that cell phone networks lost $13.9 billion worth of revenue to free social media apps in 2011. 

Comments | 1,070 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Feb 16, 2012

8.4 Percent of All Marriages Are Interracial Now

Those searching for more signs of "how far American has come" from its ugly racist past have a new statistic to latch onto today.

Comments | 1,967 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Feb 10, 2012

98% of Catholic Women Have Used Contraception the Church Opposes

It's surely a fact that the Catholic Church's higher-ups don't want to hear, but it's one that the White House has heralded in his defense of the new (and today, amended) requirement for Catholic employers to offer insurance that covers contraceptives.

Comments | 5,929 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Feb 9, 2012

34% of 25- to 29-Year-Olds Moved Back Home

Today's confirmation that the job market is tough (especially for young people), we learn Americans in their late 20s are moving back in with mom and dad at the very high rate of 34 percent.

Comments | 1,823 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Feb 1, 2012

Obama Has Given Three Times as Many Interviews as Bush

The president has granted 408 media interviews with journalists in his first three years in office, exactly three times as many as his predecesor, according to a study cited by The New York Times.

Comments | 2,309 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Jan 27, 2012

27% of State of the Union Viewers Lasted Only Five Minutes

Unfortunately for President Obama (and the TV networks that carried his State of the Union address), all his oratory skill could stop more than as quarter of viewers from tuning out right away, opting mainly for (sigh) sitcom reruns and college basketball. 

Comments | 517 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Jan 26, 2012

Only 58% of Kids Go to the Colleges They Most Want to Attend

There's some sour news today for high schoolers who just finished their college applications.

Comments | 1,405 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Jan 24, 2012

Silicon Valley Workers Now Earn $104,000 on Average

Bubble or not, tech employees in Silicon Valley seems to be doing pretty well.

Comments | 1,035 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Jan 18, 2012

Employees at Just One Paris Hospital Are Owed 2 Million Vacation Days

Exemplifying a problem created by France's generous vacation and overtime rules the employees of the Hopital Vaugirard in Paris have accumulated 2 million days off, reports NPR's Renée Montagne on Morning Edition.

Comments | 16,433 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Jan 12, 2012

More Android Devices Activated Every Day Than Babies Born

At the Consumer Electronics Show today, we've learned this somewhat astonishing stat -- even by Google's standards.

Comments | 806 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Jan 4, 2012

48% of the World's 1% Are Americans

Americans Occupiers in Zuccotti Park made famous phrases like "the 1 percent" to protest wealth disparity within the U.S. -- but the rest of the world can throw that term right back at us.

Comments | 16,581 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Jan 3, 2012

2 Percent of Voters Thought Mitt Romney's Real Name Is 'Mittens'

Quick: What's Mitt Romney's real first name? (No Googling!) If you didn't guess "Willard," you're in the same boat as 94 percent of America that somehow still doesn't know all that much about a guy who's been running for president for five years.

Comments | 67,764 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Jan 2, 2012

An Issue of The New York Times Now Worth 0.836 of a McRib

The New York Times has raised its price from $2 to $2.50 (or "to 2.50 from $2" if we go with The Times's style) for non-Sunday issues beginning today.

Comments | 7,508 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Dec 29, 2011

99-Year-Old Italian Man to Become World's Oldest Divorcé

Meet "Antonio C," the name court documents give to a nearly century-old Italian man looking to divorce his wife of 77 years.

Comments | 4,451 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Dec 27, 2011

New Yorkers Now Live 2.4 Years Longer Than Other Americans

Rats and roaches and other assorted vermin aren't knocking New Yorkers like they used to, as the average life expectancy of a newborn today in New York is 2.4 years higher than the national average.

Comments | 2,096 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Dec 23, 2011

Americans Shoplifted $1.8 Billion Worth of Stuff This Christmas

Hope you have a Merry Christmas, America, because you've been extremely naughty at the mall this year.

Comments | 25,934 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Dec 21, 2011

Ron Paul Invests 64% of His Money in Gold and Silver Mining Stock

At least you can say this about Ron Paul: he puts this money where his gold-loving mouth is.

Comments | 2,609 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Dec 19, 2011

At Least 30% of Kids Will Be Arrested Before Age 23

According to a new study in Pediatrics, somewhere between 30.2 and 41.4 percent of 8- to 23-year-olds in the U.S. will be arrested before their 23rd birthdays.

Comments | 2,334 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Dec 15, 2011

Census Says 48% of Americans Are Now 'Low-Income'

Earning $45,000 or less annually per household is the U.S. Census Bureau's threshold or calling someone "low-income," and according to the bureau's latest figures, 48 percent of U.S. citizens fall into this category.

Comments | 5,323 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Dec 14, 2011

18.3% of U.S. Women Are Victims of Rape or Attempted Rape

Experts who spoke with the Associated Press and The New York Times called the results of a new survey from Centers for Disease Control "striking" and "astounding."

Comments | 1,919 Views

By Dino Grandoni

Dec 12, 2011

Google's Top Three Executives Own Eight Jets

It's a pretty good sign that your company is doing well if its three top executives own eight jets between them, as Google's does.

Comments | 644 Views

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