Wired Research

Research notes from @Wired's fact-checking team

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Movie attendance peaked in 1946, when 90 million Americans—more than two thirds of the population—were going to the cinema every week.

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In Night of the Living Dead (1968) zombies moved at 1 step/sec. In World War Z (out today), they have sped up to 6.7 SPS.

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Today is the birthday of Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, a biochemist whose discovery of vitamins earned him a shared Nobel Prize.

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On this day in 1963, the first female in space, Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, returned to Earth after orbiting it 48 times.

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Copies in first print run: The Hobbit: 1,500; The Fellowship of the Ring: 3,000; The Two Towers: 3,250; The Return of the King: 7,000.

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The Hobbit devoted an average of 32.7 seconds of screen time per page of the book. The LOTR trilogy spent 21.3 seconds per page.

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Happy National Running Day! Since 2000, the annual number of marathon finishers has increased 38% and half-marathon finishers 284%.

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101 years ago today, Massachusetts passed the first state minimum wage law. Today, five states lack minimum wage laws.

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About half of all American television commercials are 30 seconds long, a third are 15 seconds long, and a tenth are 60 seconds long.

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In 1954, “psychologist Otis Binet” proposed a keycard for biz execs encoded with their IQs. (“Binet” was in fact satirist William H. Whyte.)

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Box office dollars generated by the Smith (Will, Jada, et al) family: $6 billion. Total fictional lives saved by the clan: 63,648,098,766.

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@barrycsr @zantoch We're talking Presidents; Richard Nixon has no schools named for him.

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@Go_Hawks_Clones It's an abbreviated list; see page 42 of our June issue for more.

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US presidents with public schools named for them: Kennedy: 98; Jefferson: 74; Wilson: 50; Washington: 47; Carter: 1; G.W. Bush: 1; Nixon: 0

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US TV shows and the number of countries that can broadcast them: Grimm: 240; Homeland: 211; Glee: 209; Modern Family: 195; Simpsons: 180.

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Data storage media life expectancies (years): USB stick: 10-12; newsprint: 10-20; clay tablet: 5,000+; Voyager Golden Record: 1 billion.

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A new survey suggests that nearly 60 percent of first-time expectant mothers expect a gift from their partner on Mother's Day.

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Tech jobs in San Francisco grew 41 percent between 2010 and 2012, compared with 22 percent in New York and 18 percent in Silicon Valley.

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When Wolverine was created, his claws were assumed to be part of his gloves. Only in X-Men #98 did Marvel decide they were part of his body.

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Carbonation impacts taste perception—notably by reducing sweetness and saltiness.