Friday, November 30, 2012

Thursday, November 29, 2012

250,000

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is offering a prize of $250,000 to whoever is the first to find a prime number that is at least one billion digits long.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

12,978,189

The largest known prime number, 2^43112609-1 is 12,978,189 digits.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

23

In the New York City subway system, there are many stations that share the same name.  The most common station name is 23 rd street.  The north-south trains all stop at 23rd street (except some express trains that skip it), but they all run along different avenues.

There are several stations called 23rd street:
  • 23rd St at 8th Ave where the A, C, and E trains stop.
  • 23rd St at 7th Ave where the 1 train stops at all times and the 3 train stops when it is late.
  • 23rd St at 6th Ave where the F train stops at all times and the M train on weekdays.
  • 23rd St and Broadway, where the N train stops at all times and the R train stops all times except late nights.
  • 23rd St. and 3rd Ave, was a stop of the elevated line.  It was closed in 1955, and the tracks have been torn down.  The 8 train stopped there.
  • 23rd St and 2nd Ave will be a station on the new 2nd Ave line, assuming it is ever completed.  The plan is for the T strain to stop there.
  • 23rd St and Ely Ave in Queens is a different 23rd street than the others.  The E train stops there.

Monday, November 26, 2012

45

The longest word to appear in an English language dictionary is

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis 

which is a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine silica dust, causing inflammation in the lungs.  It has 45 letters.

 

Sunday, November 25, 2012

07620

The priciest zip code in the US is 07626 in Alpine, NJ.  Median house price is 7.6 million dollars.

It’s not surprising that a town with so many celebrities, including Stevie Wonder, Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock, enjoys a very low crime rate. It’s easy to understand the appeal of Alpine, which is located just 15 miles from Midtown Manhattan. Median household income in the area’s Tenafly Borough School District, was more than $125,000 in 2010, more than double the U.S. average.

If you would  like to live here, here is a house at 5 Buckingham Drive for $14,750,000. 


Here is the real estate listing:  5-buckingham-dr

Saturday, November 24, 2012

87


In an age where few marriages endure the testof time, a centurion Indian couple have lived in wedded bliss for 87 years, thus becoming the world's longest married couple.  The 107 years old Karam
and his wife Katari Chand, 100, who have eight children and twenty eight grandchildren together, say that the key to success is looking after each other in every way possible.  From romantic meals to
sharing jokes, the couple, who hail from Punjab, India and now live in Bradford ensure that they do little things for each other to keep the romance alive.
 
 

Friday, November 23, 2012

2368

Research scientests found 2368 species of bacteria in the bellybuttons of 391 volunteers.  1458 of these may have been previously unknown.

If a person has an "innie" belly button, this moist, warm space can be home to well over 100 different organisms.   Bacteria, fungi and yeasts are among the different types of belly button organisms. Microbial mixes differ between individuals, but benefit all of us by helping to fight off pathogens.

Some belly buttons harbored as few as 29 species and some as many as 107, although most had around 67. Ninety-two percent of the bacteria types showed up on fewer than 10 percent of subjects—in fact, most of the time, they appeared in only a single subject.  Even though not a single strain showed up in each subject, eight species were present on more than 70 percent of the subjects. And whenever these species appeared, they did so in huge numbers.

They included strange species, such as one found in the researcher's navel that appears to prefer to break down pesticides.  Another participant harbored a species of bacteria previously found only in Japan -- a place neither he or his family had ever visited.  And one subject, who admittedly hadn’t washed for years, hosted two species of bacteria that typically thrive in ice caps and thermal vents.

They include a bacillus that produces antibiotic compounds that can kill other bacteria as well as foot fungi, and a type of clostridial bacterium. The latter’s diverse family includes botulism and gangrene bacteria, along with many harmless bugs.

Preliminary results indicate that the number of organisms per person highly varies, with each individual carrying his or her own unique mix.  "So far, we don't see clear explanations for why people differ so much in terms of their bacterial communities from person to person," Dunn said. "The differences we see don't match up easily with gender, ethnicity, age or even washing frequency. Something else is going on."  The researchers have, however, concluded that a group of relatively few bacterial species are shared among most of us, with hundreds of other rare species occurring here and there.




This picture shows some:  Micrococcus, Clostridiales, Staphylococcus, Bacillus

study website:  http://www.wildlifeofyourbody.org/

article about the bacteria found:  http://www.wildlifeofyourbody.org/?page_id=1307

about the study:  http://news.discovery.com/human/belly-button-organisms-110801.html

about the study:  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/11/121114-belly-button-bacteria-science-health-dunn/

about the study: 

Thursday, November 22, 2012

1,628

As of the 2010 census, there were 1,628 Jews living the Jewish Autonomous Region (Birobidzhan) in Russia.  This is about 1% of the population.

Their webpage (the English one)  JAR


Wednesday, November 21, 2012

9270

These stamps were jointly issued by Israel and Nepal.   They celebrate the highest point on earth - Mt. Everest, 8848 meters  (29029 feet) above sea level - and the lowest point - the Dead Sea, 422 meters (1385 feet) below sea level.


article:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19518657

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

3.05


Extra charge for the chicken to be "real" (whatever they mean by that) = $3.05

Monday, November 19, 2012

144

My friend Leigh is hoarding 144 Twinkies.  She is planning a party in January.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

555

In Thailand, 555 is used like we use LOL.  The pronunciation of five five five in Thai sounds like a person laughing.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

93.77

The life expectancy for a girl born in Monaco in 2012 is 93.77 years.

Friday, November 16, 2012

5

My roommates and I got a new dog, which brings us back up to 5.  (All rescues)

Preston - schnauzer
Trouble - schnauzer



Lady - schnoodle




Buddy - puggle

Socrates - TIL (terrier of indeterminate lineage)



Because I miss them, I am posting pictures of the dogs we've had that passed away.


Thursday, November 15, 2012

12,800

Why Israel has attacked Gaza -

Over 12,800 rockets have hit Israel in the past 11 years--that includes the period during which Israel disengaged from the Gaza Strip for the sake of peace. That's an average of three rockets per day, raining down from the sky.

Imagine having to run your children to a bomb shelter at all hours of the day (during school hours) and night (when they are asleep). Then imagine the PTSD and terror that these children will have for the rest of their lives, having lived through this for years. Now imagine a single other country in the world that would be forced into this situation, gaining the world's censure when they defend themselves only after 72 hours of being hit by nearly 200 rockets shot at them from literally only a few miles away. That's right, there is no other such country in the world.



Wednesday, November 14, 2012

21,000,000

On ebay, for $21,000,000  (yes - twenty-one MILLION dollars) you can buy a group of domain names!  Nothing physical or tangible for your money.  Someone figured that there might be a business who would want to use these domain names, so they registered them, and will sell them for a mere $21,000,000.  Don't worry, that isn't 21 million dollars each, but you get the whole group for just one payment of 21 million dollars. 


you get:
  • publicclassifieds.us
  • publicflix.org
  • publicpersonals.com     
  • publicclassifieds.biz   
  • publicclassifieds.com   
  • publicclassifieds.net   
  • publicclassifieds.us   
  • publicflicks.com   
  • publicflicks.net   
  • publicfliks.com   
  • publicfliks.net   
  • publicflix.com   
  • publicflix.net   
  • publicflix.org   
  • publicpersonals.com   
  • publicpersonals.net   
  • publicpersonals.org
  • publicpersonals.us 
In case you are interested, here is the URL:  Established-Website-For-Sale

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

34

34 is the smallest number that has the same number of factors as the number above it and the number below it.

33 has 4 factors:  1, 3, 11, 33

34 has 4 factors:  1, 2, 17, 34

35 has 4 factors:  1, 5, 7, 35

Monday, November 12, 2012

3117


My friend Don cleaned out his car and found $31.17. Normally, I would express this number in dollars, but a lot of it was coins, so I am putting this as 3,117₵.  Nine of it was in dollar bills, though.  And it included a roll of 25 1 dollar coins.



Sunday, November 11, 2012

204

Couple with combined age of 204 pose for wedding photo:  Wu Conghan, 101, and wife Wu Sognshi, 103, have a combined age of 204 and have been married 88 years.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

120,000


I'm a firm believer that no babies are ugly, but a man named Jian Feng from China apparently believed that there are such a thing, and that his own baby is one.

Because his wife is beautiful and he considered himself to be hunky, Feng immediately thought that his wife cheated. But the truth was much, much darker:

As it turns out, his wife didn’t cheat, but did gloss over the fact that she had spent $100,000 on intense plastic surgery to severely change how she looked before she met him. It’s the kind of thing that can slip your mind on the first date. After his wife revealed this to him, Feng took the only right-minded course of action and divorced and sued her, claiming that she got him to marry her under false pretenses. The false pretense presumably being that she was good looking.

Feng sued and, incredibly, he won $120,000 in judgment against his ugly-turned-beautiful ex-wife.

(Just my $0.02:  The baby looks fine to me.)

 article:  man-divorces-sues-wife-for-being-ugly-wins

Friday, November 9, 2012

137,000,000

A google search on "photographs of living dinosaurs" returned "about 137,000,000 results".


including this photograph with the caption
 "first living dinosaur found in Japan"


Thursday, November 8, 2012

079

"079 me" is British slang for "call me".  079 is the most common cell-phone prefix.  The phrase comes from a song called (guess what?) "079 Me".

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

848








The highest possible credit score is 850. But apparently, no one ever gets that score. Tom Pavelka of Westlake, Ohio, recently was congratulated by a credit bureaus for having a credit score of 848, which "ranks higher than 100 percent of U.S. consumers." How did he do it?
He has a few simple rules:

1. Never charge something without having something to show for it.

2. Never spend money without knowing when you can repay it.

3. Pay your bills on time.

You might think you have to have no debt to have a really high credit score, but that's not true. Credit scores are formed in part based on your payment history. If you never have debt, you have no track record for repaying it.

In fact, the Pavelkas have a mortgage (with four years left,) an equity line that he usually uses to buy cars and then pays off, four credit cards with amounts due this month (they pay the bills in full each month) and a total of eight credit cards with available credit exceeding $120,000.
But here's what might be the biggest factor in building such a reputation for financial responsibility: the Pavelkas have no children. 


more information:  westlake_man_has_one_of_the_hi

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

43

The first election results came in while it was still Monday hete in Alaska.

Dixville Notch, a county in New Hamshire, enjoys being the first county to have their election results, with 100% voter turnout.  They open their polls at midnight, and all 10 votes had voted by 12:00:43.

The results of their 43 seconds of voting?  5-5 tie betweem the presidential candidates.

article:  obama-romney-tie-new-hampshire-village-dixville-notch


 
 


Monday, November 5, 2012

61.05

The highest percent of the popular vote that any presidential candidate won with was 61.05%, won by Lyndon B. Johnson, over Barry Goldwater in 1964.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

9

ratio of

number of times "Paul Ryan shirtless" has been searched on the web

to

number of times "Paul Ryan budget" has been searched on the web.

47

Forty-seven has been the favorite number of Pomona College, California, USA, since 1964. A mathematical proof, written in 1964 by Professor Donald Bentley, supposedly demonstrates that all numbers are equal to 47. However, Bentley offered it as a "joke proof" to further a popular student research project that listed real and imaginative "47 sightings". Bentley used the invalid proof to introduce his students to the concept of mathematical proofs.

Joe Menosky graduated from Pomona College in 1979 and went on to become one of the story writers of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Menosky "infected" other Star Trek writers with an enthusiasm for the number 47. As a result, 47, its reverse 74, its multiples, or combinations of 47 occur surreptitiously in almost every episode of the program and its spin-offs Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise. Forty-seven might be mentioned in dialogue or appear on a computer screen, for example:
  • In Star Trek: Generations, Scotty manages to beam up only 47 El-Aurians before their ship is destroyed by the energy ribbon.
  • In the TNG episode "Darmok," the computer of the Enterprise reports to have found 47 occurrences of the word "Darmok" in its database.
  • In the DS9 episode "Whispers," the planet Parada 4 has seven moons.
  • In the Voyager episode "Tattoo," we learn that the Emergency Medical Holographic Channel is 47.
  • In the Voyager episode "Non Sequitur," Harry Kim lives in apartment 4-G, G being the seventh letter of the alphabet. The intentionality of this reference to 47 was confirmed by Brannon Braga, the writer of that episode.
  • In the 2009 film Star Trek, the Enterprise was built in Sector 47 of the Riverside Shipyards, and 47 Klingon ships are said to have been destroyed by Nero's ship, the Narada.
J. J. Abrams, who produced and directed the Star Trek film, carried a few references to the Star Trek franchise into contemporary episodes of his TV series, Fringe, one of those references being the number 47. In the Season 1 episode "Bad Dreams", aired shortly before the release of Star Trek in theaters, Nick Lane's bulletin board features a large centrally-located sheet of paper with only the number 47 in huge typeface. It recurs again in the series, for example 47 minutes being the maximum amount of time for a time chamber in the show to last, and there being exactly 47 shapeshifters.

The 47 society is an outgrowth of the "movement" started at Pomona College. They explore the belief that 47 occurs in nature more frequently than other numbers and share their personal sightings in consideration of 47 being "the quintessential random number".

Saturday, November 3, 2012

986.38

Hurricane-turned-cyclone Sandy set several records:

When hurricane hunter aircraft measured its central pressure at 940 millibars -- 27.76 inches -- Monday afternoon, it was the lowest barometric reading ever recorded for an Atlantic storm to make landfall north of Cape Hatteras, N.C. The previous record holder was the 1938 "Long Island Express" Hurricane, which dropped as low as 946 millibars.

Sandy's strength and angle of approach combined to produce a record storm surge of water into New York City. The surge level at Battery Park topped 13.88 feet at 9:24 p.m. Monday, surpassing the 10.02 feet record water level set by Hurricane Donna in 1960.

New York Harbor's surf also reached a record level when a buoy measured a 32.5-foot wave Monday. That wave was 6.5 feet taller than a 25-foot wave churned up by Hurricane Irene in 2011.

940 + 13.88 + 32.5 = 986.38

Friday, November 2, 2012

5,000,016.5

My roommate was watching the news on Hurricane Sandy, and mentioned that the depth of the water flooding Battery Park was 3.5 feet higher than the previous record.  That was when I realized that there must be a lot of numbers I could use from this storm.  I could get a bunch of them, list them, and then take the sum.

So I posted on Facebook:

I'm looking for numbers connected with Sandy - like $5,000,000 (approximate dollars the Atlantic City casinos lose peach day they are closed) or 13 (states where people are without power). Any suggestions?

So here goes:
  • 3.5  = The depth of the water in Battery Park over any previous time on record
  • 5,000,000 = The amount (in dollars) that the casinos in Atlantic City are losing total, per day  that are closed.
  • 13 = the number of states where electricity is out somewhere
  • 0 = number of numbers my Facebook friends gave for my post  

Total = 5,000,016.5

Thursday, November 1, 2012

287

Poor Yertle only has 287 votes for zoo president of the Alaska Zoo.



Come on everyone! Votwe for Yertle for zoo president. (Yertle is so far behind because originally the zoo only had Ahpun and Denali running. Yertle is a late addition write-in candidate. Wouldn't you rather have an herbavore for zoo president? Her platform is "Raisins for all and better grass."

To vote for Alaska Zoo president:  http://alaskazoo.org/