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You may know what you want, but you may not know what you need

Illustrations by Katsushika Hokusai from Hokusai Manga, published this month by Thames & Hudson.

Portion of local U.S. parks that saw an increase in visitors this spring : 2/3

Portion of U.S. parks-and-recreation agencies that have been asked to reduce spending this fiscal year : 2/3

Percentage of dust particles in U.S. national parks that are plastic : 4

Factor by which the annual amount of plastic pollution accumulating in bodies of water is expected to increase by 2040 : 2.6

By which the amount accumulating on land is expected to increase : 2.8

Approximate number of square miles that have been lost from the Louisiana coast in the past one hundred years : 2,000

Estimated percentage change by 2100 in the mortality rate in Accra, Ghana, as a result of temperature-related deaths : +19

In Oslo, Norway : -28

Percentage by which the population of the average wildlife species has declined globally since 1970 : 68

In Latin America and the Caribbean : 94

Rank of deforestation among the causes of wildlife decline on land : 1

Estimated number of animals that have been killed or displaced by Australian wildfires over the past two years : 3,000,000,000

Estimated percentage of wildland firefighters in California who are prisoners : 14

Percentage by which the U.S. prison population has dropped since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic : 8

Portion of its viewership that the cable channel A&E lost after canceling Live PD in the wake of George Floyd’s killing : 1/2

Percentage increase in police stops of black drivers in the month after a Trump rally was held in a given area in 2016 : 4.2

Estimated number of stops for which this accounted : 30,000

Percentage of black Americans who wish police officers would spend less time in their neighborhoods : 19

Who wish they would spend more : 20

Percentage decrease in the length of the average work meeting since the onset of the pandemic : 20

Percentage by which employees in open-plan offices took more sick leave than those in private offices before COVID-19 : 62

Percentage by which the unemployment rate of recently graduated U.S. physics majors exceeds that of art history majors : 60

Estimated amount that South Korea was willing to spend to save a single life in the first phase of the pandemic : $6,682,000

That the United States was willing to spend : $87,000

Number of Americans who have become billionaires over the course of the pandemic : 24

Average factor by which countries led by men have had more COVID-19 deaths than countries led by women : 1.9

Portion of U.S. adults who think it is probably or definitely true that the outbreak was planned by “powerful people” : 1/4

Percentage by which women are more likely than men to see some truth in the theory : 38

Factor by which mainstream newspapers cite organizations that oppose climate action more often than those that support it : 2

Portion of Americans who admit to not relying on the news sources they regard as the most trustworthy : 1/3

Percentage by which Republicans are less likely than Democrats to say that health officials are handling the pandemic well : 24

By which they were more likely than Democrats to say so in March : 14

Portion of Americans who have yet to complete a census form who say they would refuse to answer the door for a census worker : 2/5

Percentage of eligible U.S. voters who do not have a government-issued photo ID : 11

Minimum amount that five states have spent implementing voter-ID laws since 2006 : $36,000,000

Number of hours that Texas state lawyers have spent litigating voter-ID laws since 2011 : 12,400

Percentage of Americans who would support testing presidential candidates’ cognitive ability : 67

Who would support administering drug tests to candidates : 70

Portion of Americans who think neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump would make a good president : 1/4

October 27, 2020

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SARS was found in tears.

A psycholinguistic analysis of posts on Twitter and Weibo during COVID-19 lockdowns found that residents of Lombardy grew increasingly focused on leisure and residents of Wuhan grew increasingly focused on religion.

Convalescent plasma helps Syrian hamsters fight SARS-CoV-2.

Falling levels of tourist trash during pandemic lockdowns was found to have caused rat infighting, and macaques were reported to have attacked a lab assistant in Delhi and stolen vials of COVID-­19-­infected blood, which at least one monkey then tried to eat.

The World Health Organization warned that SARS will probably return this winter.

Falling levels of tourist trash during pandemic lockdowns was found to have caused rat infighting, and macaques were reported to have attacked a lab assistant in Delhi and stolen vials of COVID-19-infected blood, which at least one monkey then tried to eat.