EX FILES

ALERT:
IN THE U.S.: If you see a homeless person call the Hypothermia hot-line (800) 535-7252  (This number is verified, so please add it to your cellular phones - a caller can request emergency assistance anonymously by reporting the location information for a homeless person.  Operators contact services in your local area.  In areas where no shelters are available, most hospitals will take in homeless persons when the outdoor temperature places them at risk for severe injury or death from exposure to low temperature.) 

Percent of Americans receiving food stamps (government assistance to purchase non-taxable food supplies) who live in households with zero income:  nearly 20%  (about 6 million people, with 1.2 million being children under age 16)

All the oil, wood, gas, and coal on Earth would only keep the Sun burning for 3-4 days

Fingernail polish usually contains four or five chemicals the US Environmental Protection Agency has named "potentially harmful"  -  If a person bought a 55-gallon drum of fingernail polish, the empty container could not legally be disposed of in a landfill due to EPA regulations  -  as many as 35,000 nail polish bottles find their way into municipal landfills in the US every year  (EPA guidelines recommend that amount in total would have to be disposed of at a hazardous waste facility, but no guidelines exist for the accumulated disposal of smaller quantities)

7.2 million Americans contract something in hospital to add to whatever they were originally admitted for treatment -  15,000 Americans die each year from infections contracted during a hospital stay

Novelist Jerry Kosinski was "utterly frustrated" when his luggage was lost by the airline during a New York stopover on a trip from Paris to L.A. in 1969 because it caused him to miss seeing his friend for a dinner party that evening in Los Angeles  -  the friend was Sharon Tate, and later Kosinski learned that sometime that night, members of Charlie Manson's cult had arrived and murdered all guests as well as Tate

89 out of 103 random people who were handed an unlabeled copy of the Declaration of Independence at a Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA shopping mall were unable to identify it

Bobby Leech survived going over Niagara Falls in a barrell in 1911  -  a year later, while in New Zealand, he slipped on a piece of garbage, hit his head, and died

Net population growth per day in 2009, on average:  113,000

Where in the U.S. you are most likely to be murdered by a serial killer:  California, Texas, New York, Illinois, Florida  (Maine has the least serial killings with none reported, with Hawai'i, Montana, North Dakota, Delaware and Vermont each having only ever reported one arrest of a serial killer)

Most serial killers are white (94%), heterosexual (88%), men (89%)  -  most victims are white (89%) and female (75%)

The average human retains about 3% of the information they are exposed to each day

Most humans (about 60%) fall asleep on their side

Mexico has more American residents than any other country outside the United States

The Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport is larger than Manhattan

Alaska has the highest percentage of people who walk to work than any other state in the U.S.

90% of Canadians live within ten miles of the United States border

Only 4% of Americans did not eat at a McDonald's or Burger King last year

Once a document is filed in an office in the U.K., a 90% chance exists that it will not be looked at again  -  in the U.S. this chance increases to 94%

For each of the past five years, Internet growth (number of users plus number of added blogs, websites and email accounts) has increased 314,000%

Every year, London's public parks are doused in one million gallons of dog urine

The average human can distinguish 6,850 smells  -  95% can differentiate between a male and a female by smelling their breath

Number one cause of burglar alarm activation in the U.S.: owner error (burglary ranks 7th)

When humans meet for the first time, our eyes widen and our eyebrows lift

The amount of oil used worldwide in one year is doubling every 10 years

Percent of Americans who have spent a night in jail: 13%

 Last two European countries to grant women the right to vote: Sweden-1971, and Leichtenstein-1984

Since 1976 in the U.S., more than 100 pizza box patents have been issued to inventors

 IN THE NEWS:
Atlanta municipal bus driver Leroy Matthews was suspended in 2009 November for an incident in which he suddenly stopped the bus and refused to open the doors until the riding passengers joined hands with him in
prayer

Shannon Broome, 15, of Jacksonville, Fla., with her leg in a cast and still laid up from a 2009 June rollover accident in an SUV, was hit again in December when another out-of-control SUV came through her bedroom wall and re-broke the leg (among other injuries inflicted)

At Britain's West Midland Safari Park, the African elephant "Five" spends portions of almost every day puffing away at a harmonica she found in her enclosure in the Spring of 2009. Said a Park spokesperson, "Five was making tunes within a few weeks" 

Sara Foss, 39, the mother of 13 in Derby, England, who is scheduled to deliver number 14 in March, told the Daily Mail in 2009 November of her vow to continue getting pregnant until she fulfills her desire to have twins

Bandanna-clad Jason Zacchi, 27, was arrested in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, USA in 2009 November after, according to police, pointing a shotgun at a Wendy's employee at the drive-in window and demanding money. Moments later, the shift manager angrily approached the window and yelled at Zacchi, "What the hell are you doing?" (The manager had recognized Zacchi through his bandanna. Zacchi is her son)

In 2002 April, the U.S. Patent Office awarded patent number 6,368,227 to Steven Olson, age 7, of St. Paul, Minnesota, whose father had filed to help him protect a method of swinging on a swing. The Olsons' discovery: While seated, if you pull alternately on one side's chain/rope and then on the other side's, while gradually introducing a forward-backward thrust, you can swing in an oval-shaped arc, as long as the side-to-side motion is greater than the forward-backward motion. According to the Patent Office, licenses to use the patented method are available from the inventor