at the time of this writing, the average human being consumes the equivalent of a credit card's worth of plastic every week.

it takes 1,000 years for a plastic bag to degrade in a landfill. this doesn't mean that they go away. instead, they become microplastics (sometimes also called nanoplastics) which absorb toxins and continue to pollute the environment.

1 out of every 3 dead leatherback turtles choked to death on a plastic bag. the turtles eat them because they resemble jellyfish, which are a common food for the turtles.

almost all plastic produced in the u.s. ends up in landfills or the ocean - more than 1,500,000 tons per year. 

this is because many kinds of plastic cannot be recycled. and even when a plastic can be recycled, it is much less expensive to produce new plastic than it is to recycle old plastic.

the companies that produce plastic have always known this, but they deliberately lie about it.

in the u.s., every citizen uses an average of 365 single-use plastic bags per year.

in denmark, the average citizen uses 4 single-use plastic bags per year.

at the time of this writing, humans produce 5 trillion single-use plastic bags.

none of them are recycled.

your gut biome - the microscopic organisms passed on from your parents before you were born - communicates with the rest of your body via a language composed of thousands of bile acids. these acids aid in digestion, regulate your immune system, regulate lipid and glucose metabolism, and can fight scores of diseases.

according to a study by stanford university, first-generation male immigrants are more likely to have successful careers than u.s.-born males who do not finish high school.

according to a study by stanford university, u.s.-born men who didn't finish high school are the most likely demographic to go to prison.

during the civil war, the alabama cavalry flanked union general sherman and protected his troops' march to the sea.

during the civil war, nearly 100,000 white southerners volunteered to join the union army and fight to prevent the southern states from seceding.

of the 12 southern states that seceded during the civil war, 7 stated in their secession declarations that the reason that they were seceding was to protect slavery.

laundry pods dissolve into microplastic. and because no water treatment plant in any country is equipped to filter them, the microplastic goes right into our rivers, streams, and lakes. and from there into all of the fish, mollusks, water plants, and... us.

insects are not naturally attracted to lights. they can't tell the difference between artificial lights and the stars, so they become disoriented and either starve or are eaten by predators before morning.

(the praying mantises, snakes, and toads in our neighborhood hang out under streetlights at night, waiting on free meals.)

an amoeba has a genome that is more than 100 times larger than a human's.

mammals have a gene called tp53. its function is to ward off cancer and protect the cell. humans have 2 of these genes. if one becomes mutated or damaged, your potential for cancer skyrockets.

elephants have 20 of these genes.

schizophrenia can be caused by any one of up to 300 genes, or any combination thereof. and that's not taking into account other things that may cause it, too, such as your rna, gut biome, etc.

between 2019 and 2023, 27 million people have died of covid. and counting.

between 1981 and 2022, 33 million people died of hiv/aids.

between 1976 and today (1/20/24), 15,000 people have died of ebola, a flesh-eating disease.

between 1918 and 1920, more than 50 million people worldwide died of the spanish flu.

between 1894 and 1940, 15 million people died of the plague. it was the plague's third global pandemic.

in 1889, 4 million people worldwide died of the russian flu.

between 1865 and 1947, 23 million people in india died of cholera.

in your lifetime, you will walk past an average of 36 murderers.

when nelson mandela returned to south africa from zimbabwe, the cia alerted south africa's government, which put mandela in prison for 27 years. why did the cia do this?

they were afraid that mandela would spread communism in africa.

household income for the middle class in the u.s. has fallen steadily since 1970.

the average plastic bottle of water contains 250,000 pieces of nanoplastic that you swallow when you drink. they are as small as a virus and can pass the blood/brain barrier, which means that once you drink, they spread throughout your entire body.

so what does that do to you?

no one knows. yet.

currently in the u.s., the top 1% of wage earners pay less in state and local taxes than all other wage earners in 41 states.

as an example, the richest 1% in florida have a 2.7% tax rate, but the lowest-income folks in that state pay 13.2% - almost 5 times more.

there are 50 prisons that have been used by the united states since 9/11 to hold detainees in 28 countries (in addition to at least 25 more prisons in afghanistan and 20 in iraq).

it is estimated that the u.s. has also used 17 ships as floating prisons since 2001, bringing the total estimated number of prisons operated by the u.s. and/or its allies to house alleged terrorist suspects since 2001 to more than 100.

these terrorism suspects will never stand trial, likely never be released, and a sizable number of them are tortured.

because they are at the top of their food chain, orcas are the most pollution-contaminated marine mammal.

orcas are the fastest mammal in the sea, attaining speeds of up to 35 miles per hour, the speed of a galloping horse. they are also matriarchies, and mate for life.

an orca's teeth are about 4 inches long - twice the size of a great white shark's - and conical. their mouths are large enough to swallow seals whole. speaking of great white sharks - they flee when they smell orca urine in the water.

orcas, or killer whales, were originally called 'whale killers', a name that is extremely apt. orcas have the largest dorsal fin of all cetaceans - roughly the height of a tall man. the white patch behind this fin is as unique as a fingerprint. their white and black patches make them more difficult to spot from above and below, which makes it easier for them to close in on prey (seals, dolphins, penguins, and whales).

the world's rarest wild cat is the amur leopard, which lives in the mountain forests of northeast china. there are only 65 left.

louis braiile was just 12 when he transformed a silent langauge used by the french military into the written language of the blind.

ciabatta bread was invented in 1982.

a litter of kittens is called a kindle.

the world's longest case of hiccups lasted 68 years.

a group of ferrets is called a business. (which frankly seems a little on-the-nose.)

in 2022 the u.s. gave israel us$3.3 billion in foreign assistance. almost all of this money went to israel's military.

since wwii, israel has been by far the largest recipient of american aid, until it was surpassed by ukraine in 2022 (which received us$12.4 billion in that year).

between 1951 and 2022, israel received us$225.2 billion.

it is likely that a rose (or anything else with a scent) may smell differently to you than to someone else if your genetic characteristics differ.

it takes almost 2 days to pass a lego through your digestive tract.

the smallest snail that we know of (so far) is angustopila dominikae. they are so small that 10 of them could pass through the eye of a needle at once without bumping into each other.

75% of the plastic pollution on earth (including the ocean) is dust from car and truck tires wearing down. the particles are so small that they pass directly from any animals gills/lungs into its blood, and from there to the brain. (that includes us.)

costco sells enough toilet paper per year to wrap around the earth 1,200 times. and it all has to go somewhere, even if we don't like to think about that.

the number one cause of power grid problems in the u.s. from may - june and october - november is squirrels.

humans are born with just 2 innate fears: falling (which also accounts for fear of deep water) and loud sounds. all other fears are learned.

graffes hum at night to keep their herds together.

if you subject peanut butter to enough heat and pressure, it turns into tiny, artificial diamonds.

every human body contains about 0.2 milligrams of gold.

your eyes always see your nose, but your brain ignores it using a process called unconscious selective attention.

without a landmark or some other visual marker (such as the sun, moon, or stars), human beings cannot walk in a straight line. they gradually walk in a circle.

people in developed countries between the ages of 14 and 49 have become markedly disinterested in sex of any kind. even masturbation has seen a huge change - 44.2% of males and 74% of females in this age range reported that they do not masturbate.

americans are drinking about half as much milk as they did in 1970, but eating 3 times as much cheese.

the u.s. census bureau stopped reporting on americans' diet in 2010.

the average american consumes 36 pounds of cooking oil each year. this is 3 times as much as in 1970.

hunter-gatherer societies get about 30% of their calories from meat.

in 1970, the average american consumed 2,025 calories per day. in 2023, the average is 3,900 calories (almost double). the bulk of the change was a huge increase in grains and fat.

women who take hormonal birth control pills are more attracted to males who are genetically similar to them, while women who don't are more attracted to males that are genetically dissimilar.