TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

2005 Edition: 50 Things We Know Now (That We Didn't Know This Time Last Year)

ADVERTISEMENT

By JEFF HOUCK | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 29, 2005

To quote Ferris Bueller, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it."

It would be easy to overlook the huge amount of new information we learn in any given year. The latest theory is that we double our collective knowledge as a society every 12 months, so it's understandable that we'd have a hard time absorbing all the new discoveries in the world. We're still trying to remember who won the last round on "American Idol."

To assist you in better understanding our changing world, here's a collection of tidbits we learned this year that may have eluded your radar.

1. A crystalline structure in popcorn appears to determine its popping quality. The discovery could lead to a better microwave popcorn with fewer or no unpopped kernels.

2. The U.S. prison population, already the largest in the world, reached a new high of more than 2.1 million in 2004, with one in every 138 residents of the country incarcerated.

3. Tampa is the sixth-worst city for dating in the country.

4. The microphone that once sat prominently on the desk of Johnny Carson was worth $ 50,787 at auction.

5. Twenty-six percent of the organizations surveyed by the American Management Association said they have fired workers for misusing the Internet. Another 25 percent have terminated employees for e-mail abuse, and 6 percent have canned them for misusing office phones.

6. The Bungee Cam was born in April, during a San Antonio Spurs-Dallas Mavericks NBA telecast by TNT. The camera dropped from the scoreboard to 7 to 10 feet from the floor to get shots of team huddles and a view from behind a free-throw shooter.

7. For the first time ever, half of all individual tax returns were electronically filed.

8. Former FBI official W. Mark Felt was revealed to be Deep Throat, the secret source whose insider guidance was vital to The Washington Post's coverage of the Watergate scandal.

9. Fifty-seven percent of cyclists polled by Greenfield Online said they would prefer bike seats with extra padding for added comfort.

10. Four percent of Americans read e-mail in the bathroom on a hand-held electronic device.

11. The typical U.S. church congregation draws an adult crowd that is 61 percent female and 39 percent male - a gender gap that shows up in all age categories.

12. More than 900 nutrition bars came to market between 2001 and 2004.

13. For the first time since the National Association of Realtors started tracking the data, the national median price of a condo was higher than that of a single-family home. In June, the median price of a condo was $223,500, compared with $218,600 for a traditional house. From 2001 to 2004, condo values appreciated 57 percent, while those of single-family homes rose 25 percent.

14. The pay package for Bello Nock, the star clown of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, doubled to $600,000 in the last five years.

15. Nearly a quarter of all breakfast meals ordered at restaurants are eaten in the car, up more than 40 percent over 1993.

16. One in five U.S. moms serves ketchup every day of the week. Sweden is the No. 1 consumer of ketchup. Australia is No. 2. The United States and Canada tied for third.

17. The kosher food industry does $9 billion in business and is growing at a rate of 15 percent a year.

18. Only 4 percent of Americans are natural redheads.

19. Although about 60 percent of the U.S. population is eligible to give blood, only 5 percent donates in a given year.

20. Nearly 16,000 new computer viruses, worms and Trojans appeared on the Internet in 2005.

21. Eleven earthquakes registered 7.0 or higher on the Richter scale worldwide, in 2005, down from 15 the previous year.

22. Thirty percent of teens consider instant messaging the way they most often keep in touch with friends on a day-to-day basis, surpassing the cell phone, which was selected by 27 percent of teens.

23. The number of breast augmentation surgeries in the United States increased 24 percent from 2000 to 2004.

24. The number of plastic surgery operations among Hispanics increased 49 percent from 2000 to 2004.

25. Total fertility rates worldwide fell to 2.7 births per woman between 2000 and 2005, from 4.9 births between 1965 and 1970.

26. Among all Internet users in America, 53 million, or 44 percent, are now using some form of online banking service.

27. Of the estimated 5.5 million stay-at-home parents in the United States, 98,000 were dads.

28. From 1970 to 2000, the median age at first marriage for women increased by 4.3 years to 25.1 years; for men, the increase was 3.6 years to 26.8 years.

29. Since landing Dec. 12, 2004, Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has logged four miles on its odometer and sent back more than 58,000 images.

30. The U.S. space shuttle program will need $3 billion to $5 billion more during the next five years to accomplish the 18 remaining flights necessary to complete the International Space Station.

31. Hamburger outlets in the United States served about 500 million more customers in 2004 than in the previous year. Doughnut shops served about 150 million more people in 2004 than in 2003.

32. Sixty-nine percent of consumers described their diets when eating out as "fair to poor," compared to 39 percent who said they eat "fair to poor" diets at home.

33. The top three search terms on ESPN.com for 2005: 1. Terrell Owens; 2. Carolina Panthers cheerleaders; 3. Notre Dame.

34. The most expensive home in the world is Updown Court in Windlesham, England, at $122.2 million. The newly built palace features 103 rooms, five swimming pools, a heated marble driveway and 24-carat-gold leaf on the floor of the study.

35. A new Weblog, or blog, is created every second.

36. Babies who used a pacifier while they slept had a 90 percent reduced risk of cot death compared to other infants.

37. Of all children's toys, Barbie dolls provoked the most violent emotions among young girls, including popping off their heads and microwaving them.

38. Polynesian rats who deforested 16 million palm trees were likely to blame for the demise of the natives of Easter Island.

39. During a stroke, 1.9 million nerve cells die each minute.

40. The average expected retirement age by high school and college students today is 59, and one in five believe they will make a starting salary of more than $ 50,000.

41. One percent of all breakfasts are eaten at our desks - a meal known as "deskfast."

42. People like their names so much that they prefer the letters in their names to other letters. Men are particularly partial to their last initial, women to their first.

43. Tiny amounts of synthetic chemicals found in the environment called endocrine disrupters affect hormones that shape our bodies and behavior by turning genes on and off, setting a pattern for obesity even before birth.

44. Although the average weight gain during the holidays is 1.06 pounds, most people estimate they gain about 5 pounds.

45. Blood pressure among recovering patients who had experienced heart failure dropped 10 percent after a visit by a hospital volunteer who was accompanied by a dog.

46. Viewers who watch "Oprah" also like to watch news programs.

47. Hanging the flat-screen television on the wall like a painting is the leading reason buyers want a new digital TV, but only 18 percent of consumers actually do it.

48. Ninety percent of new HIV infections in Pacific nations are occurring in Papua New Guinea.

49. Screw caps are better than corks at preserving the fruity bouquet of sauvignon blanc.

50. The magnetic North Pole is moving 25 miles a year. Over the past century, the pole has moved 685 miles from Arctic Canada toward Siberia. At its current rate, the pole could move to Siberia within the next half-century.

SOURCES: 1. Purdue University; 2. Associated Press; 3. America Online; 4. Associated Press; 5. Wall Street Journal; 6. USA Today; 7. Internal Revenue Service; 8. Associated Press; 9. Greenfield Online; 10. Opinion Research Corp.; 11. Christianity Today; 12. Wall Street Journal; 13. National Association of Realtors; 14. Wall Street Journal; 15. Washington Post; 16. Heinz Co.; 17. Associated Press; 18. InStyle Magazine; 19. American Red Cross; 20. ElectricNews.net; 21. U.S. Geological Survey; 22. America Online; 23 and 24. American Society of Plastic Surgeons; 25. Population Resource Center; 26. Pew Internet & American Life; 27. The U.S. Census Bureau; 28. U.S. Commerce Department; 29. Jet Propulsion Laboratory; 30. Space.com; 31. The NPD Group; 32. Technomic; 33. ESPN.com; 34. Forbes.com; 35. Harper's magazine; 36. Kaiser Permanente Northern California; 37. University of Bath; 38. University of Hawaii; 39. University of California, Los Angeles; 40. Ameriquest Mortgage Co.; 41. Associated Press; 42. INSEAD Social Science Research Center; 43. Environmental Health Sciences; 44. New England Journal of Medicine; 45. American Heart Association; 46. The Poynter Institute; 47. Texas Instruments; 48. United Nations; 49. University of Auckland; 50. Oregon State University

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT