Coverage of the technology at Occupy Wall Street focuses on the neat-o, young-people elements such as Twitter, Facebook, live streaming video, and a sleepover atmosphere. But Occupy Wall Street also employs the kind of heavy-duty data crunching and analysis found at marketing firms and universities. In fact, two of…
That's the UN Population Fund's latest global population projection, which confirms population predictions made earlier this year. As you might have noticed, our species hasn't been making jobs like we've been making babies, which presents some issues. Don't worry, though: catastrophe's not necessarily inevitable. Not…
The NYPD equivalent of "don't bite the hand that feeds you" should be "don't crack the skull that generates your extra spending money": so far the Occupy Wall Street protests have racked up $2 million in police overtime pay—"and counting," as the New York Daily News anxiously points out. That's a lot of new tires for…
DEADLY DRUG DEATH SHOCKER: As of 2009, more Americans die from prescription drugs than die in cars. Wow. So?
A new study published in Science points towards "an unprecedented global demographic upheaval." Does that phrase sound ominous to you? Ding ding! It is. According to the research, undertaken by the Harvard School of Public Health, the world population will pass the 7 billion mark by the end of this year. By the year…
According to Ask Men's annual Great Male/Female Surveys, half of all straight men say they would dump a girlfriend who got fat. 20 percent of straight women say they'd dump a boyfriend who got fat.
The Telegraph today reports that beer sales in Britain have dropped 9.8 percent between April and June of this year, and the same time last year. That's the biggest dip in sales in 14 years. So, why are beer sales plummeting? The paper assigns blame to the outrageous taxes imposed on brewers, a 35.4 percent rise in…
It's baby-name time! The Social Security Administration has released the top baby names of 2010. People still love naming their kids after popular movie and TV shows!
LinkedIn, the professional social networking site that exists only so that it can email me every two days, has taken a page from OK Cupid's book and mined its user base for meme-worthy data! First up: "The top CEO names."
The statistical wizards at OKCupid have once again analyzed the sexual mores of their users, and reached two vital conclusions: Twitter users masturbate more, and vegetarians are more likely to enjoy giving head.
A new study suggests that 80 percent of children under the age of 5 use the internet, mostly as commenters on YouTube. [Mashable]
What does it take to be the happiest man in America? "Friendship," you might say. "Trust." Ha!. The real secret to happiness being a tall, married, business-owning Asian-American Jewish man living in Hawaii. Like Alvin Wong!
According to stats compiled by the New York Post, there were 121 disciplinary drug busts at uptown nerdfest Columbia last year, compared to 610 at artfag haven NYU. Do NYU kids do more drugs? Possibly. Or, security are just dicks.
"Americans watched more television than ever in 2010." U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
Do you have an hour? Here is Hans Rosling's BBC Four documentary The Joy of Stats. He takes us through a number of studies he's done and the statistics to back up said claims, complete with pretty charts.
The fearsome news Voltron that is the Daily News Beastweek has compiled a list of the 40 Drunkest Cities in the US, using the average number of drinks consumed per person in a month. So how did your city fare?
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that life expectancy/income across the world was less in 1810 than in 2010, but how—and where—did the statistics tick up over time? In this stunningly visual presentation, Hans Rosling explains.
Bad news, people who think pirates are entertaining from afar: global pirate attacks are down this year, thanks mostly to sharp reduction in the number of attacks off the coast of Somalia. Ironic "silver lining": the pirates have moved!
In case there was any confusion: "This blog post originally stated that one in three black men who have sex with me is HIV positive. In fact, the statistic applies to black men who have sex with men."
