Factoids! Fun Facts to amuse and inspire students....and colleagues!

Sweet Teeth

US per capita consumption of sweeteners including sugar, syrups, honey (and Valentine's candy) increased from 137 pounds in 1990 to 158 pounds in 1999.
SOURCE: US Census Bureau

Big Eaters

Americans consumed 76 billion pounds of red meat and poultry in the year 2000, up 21% from a decade earlier.
SOURCE: US Census Bureau

Cognassic Park

A new attraction in the Cognac region of France will allow tourists to watch paleontologists at work, unearthing 135 million-year old fish, tortoises, crocodiles, pterosaurs and dinosaurs of "impressive size, number, and integrity".
SOURCE: Sud Ouest, January 18, 2002

Countdown

Scientists have identified only 4,000 different viruses, a fraction of the estimated 400,000 believed to exist on Earth.
SOURCE: All Species Foundation

Miracle Drug

At least 40,000 extra lives could be saved every year if everyone with a high-risk condition for whom aspirin was appropriate actually received it.
SOURCE: British Medical Journal, Jan. 11, 2002