facts 29

"El siglo pasado la ciudad [Venecia], amenazada por las aguas, se hundió 23 centímetros", dice Milena Fernández en El País.

facts 28

El retraso acumulado durante un año del Shinkansen (tren bala japonés) es de 36 segundos. (fuente: documental C33)

El apunte: No quieras ni saber el retraso que los trenes de Renfe acumulan durante una semana.

facts 27

Un billete de segunda en el recién inaugurado tren de alta velocidad de Pekín a Shanghai (1318km en 5 horas) cuesta 60€. (fuente: Informativos BTV)

El apunte: Madrid-Barcelona en AVE son 659km y el billete cuesta de 60 para arriba.

facts 25

One smile can generate the same level of brain stimulation as up to two thousand bars of chocolate.

(fuente aquí)

facts 26

"The perfect sandcastle: 8 parts of sand for each part of water." El País

pic by lovedaylemon

facts 25

"The sun has been shinning for 4.5 billion years. But it'll be another 6 billions years before its fuel runs out and any remaining life on earth is erradicated. Humans won't be here though. Any life and intelligence that exists then would be as different from us as we are from bacteria." Martin Rees at TED talks

facts 24

“Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly alfter, the human era will be ended.” Vernor Vinge, via Spacecollective.org

upside-down pic by vintage posters

facts 23

"Animal populations have fallen by 31 per cent since 1970, living corals by 38 per cent and mangroves and sea grasses by 19 per cent. The annual rates of loss have shown no improvement since 2002, according to the study of more than 40 international monitoring systems. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reported last November that 21 per cent of all known mammals, 30 per cent of amphibians, 12 per cent of birds and 70 per cent of plants were under threat. The IUCN calculated that the rate of species loss was up to 1,000 times greater than the natural background rate.

" The Times

facts 22

"The World Health organization now estimates one out of five people on the planet is clinically depressed and that depression is the biggest epidemy mankind has ever faced." Stephen Petranek; TED talks

facts 21

"Computer power doubles every eighteen months.” Visions of the Future, BBC Four

facts 20

"Plastic is believed to constitute 90 per cent of all rubbish floating in the oceans. The UN Environment Programme estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic." The Independent

facts 19

"A typical adult has 60 thousand miles worth of blood vessels. End to end that would form a line that will circle the earth twice
." William Li in TED talks



facts 18

“Holt-Lunstad's team reviewed 148 studies that tracked the social interactions and health of 308,849 people over an average of 7.5 years. From these they worked out how death rates varied depending on how sociable a person was. Being lonely and isolated was as bad for a person's health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being an alcoholic*.” The Guardian

*Moraleja: los efectos negativos del consumo de tabaco se neutralizan fumando en buena compañía (cuántos más mejor).

facts 17

"Those who generally sleep for less than six hours a night are 12% more likely to experience a premature death over a period of 25 years than those who consistently get six to eight hours' sleep. Those who sleep more than nine hours a night can be more likely to die early. Oversleeping itself is not seen as a risk but as a potential indicator of underlying ailments." The Guardian


facts 16

"Spiders can produce 700 meters silk in one continuous strand." BBC series

facts 15

"
A blue whale is as long as three double-decker buses
." Naomi Alderman

facts 14

“The first orangutan in London Zoo, Jenny, came in 1837.” The Story of Science, BBC

Portrait Printed by W Clerk, High Holborn, in December 1837.

facts 13

"In 1995, the Hubble telescope was pointed for 10 days at a patch of sky which appears completely blank to the naked eye from the Earth. It's a tiny piece – much smaller than the area of sky you'd cover with your little fingernail if you held your arm outstretched. In that apparently blank area of sky the Hubble Deep Field Image discerned with amazing clarity more than 10,000 galaxies. Each galaxy is made up, on average, of about 100bn stars. Every star could, like our sun, be orbited by planets. That is the size of the universe we live in.
" Naomi Alderman

more pictures http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/

facts 12

“The Internet has become the largest and most advanced man-made self-organized system on the planet”. Spacecollective.org

facts 11

"In just the first 2000 days after the Web was born, the world built some 3 billion Web pages readily available to the public." Joel Garreau via Spacecollective.org