FastFacts
100
Approximate number of viruses that can cause a cold
60
Percentage of home detectors that people haven’t actually
bothered to put a battery in
44Million
Number of ways there are to make BINGO on a card of 90 numbers
1,100
Speed, in feet per second, that sound waves move through the air.
33
Percentage of faeces that is solid bacteria
6,588,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Earth’s approximate weight in tons
45,000
Pieces of plastic debris floating on every square mile of ocean
Forty
Maximum number of commands a dog can understand
1,680
Hours it took to play the longest ever game of Monopoly
27,000
Number of taste buds on a catfish – more than any other creature
7.5Million
Number of toothpicks that can be made from one cord (128 cubic feet)
of wood
180
The average number of pints downed by a Brit in a year
Ninety – Nine
The percentage of life forms that have existed on earth but are
now extinct
1,000
The number of languages spoken in Africa
72
The percentage of Australian Aboriginals who actually live in towns
and cities
400
The number of bridges that link the city of Venice
Three
The number of plane crashes caused by the pilot being shot
37
The length in metres of the world’s shortest river –
the D. River in Oregon, USA
4,546,000,000
The litres of petroleum consumed by the entire world in a day
65
The percentage of UK
men who are overweight
9,880
Kids expelled from UK
schools last year
30,000
Estimated maximum population of a wasp nest
152,792
The number of post offices you’ll find in India – the most in the world
25
The potential prison sentence, in years, for cutting down cactus
in Arizona, USA
350,000
The number of tobacco seeds it takes to produce a single ounce of
tobacco
40Million
The number of times your heart beats in a year
66
Percentage of mags dumped on US roads
2Billion
Pounds lost to a computer game piracy every year
136.8
Processing speed of the world’s fastest computer, IBM’s
Blue Gene/L, in teraflops
17Million
Hospital meals left untouched and thrown away each year
4,742
The number of years we’ve been drinking tea
58
The percentage of the London Underground that is not underground
Twelve
The age of consent for sex in Mexico
12Billion
Annual cost of drink – related crime
150Million
The amount of library book theft costs the UK tax – payer each year
600
Mph – the speed at which air leaves the mouth during a cough
Ten Million
Bricks used in the Empire
State Building
150
Calories burnt by banging your head against a wall for an hour
ONE
Number of litres of snot the average person swallows in a day
2,500
Left – handed people killed every year using products for
right – handed people
Twelve Pounds
The weight of the average human head
3,000
Price in US dollars that a half – eaten slice of Justin Timberlake’s
toast fetched on eBay
6.3Million
The number of Britons killed by smoking in the 50 years
1.71
The ratio of sheeps to people in Wales
1,000
The weight (in tonnes) of cigarette butts dumped on Manchester’s streets last year
Six
Litres of air breathed in by a human being in a minute
500
The number of snails eaten per person by the French each year
90
Percentage of our life we spend indoors
Three
Moths it takes a human foetus to acquire fingerprints
206
The number of bones in an adult body, of which 106 are in the hands
and feet
27
The percentage of food waste each year in Britain
17
The number of facial muscles it takes to smile, compared with 42
to frown
Three
Percentage of women who kiss with eyes open compared with 63 percent
of men
23,000
The number of cabbies working in London at the moment
Left – handed
People chew food on the left of their mouth
48
Years it took to invent a can opener, after cans were first sold
Seven
Minutes it takes the average person to fall asleep
220,000
Hours we sleep in a lifetime (equal to 25 years)
75
Percent of your brain is made up of water
Mohammed
Is the most common name in the world
A Chicken
That has just had its head cut off can run one full length of a
football pitch before it dies
Seventeen
The number of days it takes a snail to travel a mile
2.6
The number of calories used up in a kiss
38
The number of America’s
states that still have the death penalty
Eleven
The number of days a human can live without water
0.2
The number litres sweat that drip off your feet every day
237,748
The number by which the world’s population increases every
day
25
The percentage of alcoholics who are women
529
The number of positions in Kama Sutra
18
The number of mathematical calculations required to put a one –
day weather forecast together
350
The distance in feet per second that pain travels
45Million
The number of children in Asia
who are forced to go out and work
