- Counting up from zero, and excluding "and," the first number to contain an "a" is "thousand." (Prospect research)
- In 1935, 7.5 per cent of Germans were members of the Nazi party, but among teachers the figure was nearly one third. (The Scotsman, 13th August 2007)
- Women who receive implants for breast enhancement are three times more likely to commit suicide than other women. (Los Angeles Times, 8th August 2007)
- Between 1962 and 2002, life expectancy in the middle east and north Africa increased from around 48 years to 69—the strongest performance of any region in the world. (Charles Kenny)
- 52 per cent of Korean infants between the ages of three and five use the internet. They spend an average 4 hours a week online. (Korean Herald, 3rd August 2007)
- 38 per cent of Jewish Israelis say they think Israel should be run by religious law, and 30 per cent say Yigal Amir, murderer of Yitzhak Rabin, should be pardoned. (New Yorker, 30th July 2007)
- 11 out of the 12 men to have walked on the moon were in the Boy Scouts. (Boy scouts of America national council)
- Per capita, Cuba grants more patents than either China or India. (Economist.com, 30th July 2007)
- Deutsche Bank employs more people in London than in Frankfurt. (New Statesman, 19th July 2007)
- When Tony Blair came to power there were 129 shoplifters in prison; there are now 1,400. Back then there were fewer than 4,000 life prisoners; there are now 6,431—more than Germany, France, Italy and Turkey combined. (The Guardian, 20th June 2007)
- Research on guinea pigs has resulted in 23 Nobel prizes. ("A Guinea Pig's History of Biology" by Jim Endersby)
- It typically costs 12p to send a 160-character text message from one British mobile phone to another. Byte for byte, this works out as over 12 times what Nasa pays to retrieve data from the Hubble Space Telescope. (the Independent, 1st August 2007)
- A third of return flights from Britain last year were made by 4 per cent of the population. Over half the population took no flights at all. (New Statesman, 20th August 2007)
- Spammers usually need to send a million emails to get 15 positive responses. (New Yorker, 6th August 2007)
- Matt Damon is the best value star in Hollywood. For every dollar he has been paid for his last three roles, his films returned $29. Jennifer Aniston is the best value actress, with $17 of gross income for every dollar paid to her. (Forbes, 6th August 2007)
- Ireland is the second richest country in the OECD, behind Japan. (Irish Times, 30th July 2007)
- Isaac Newton invented the cat flap. (Science Museum)
- 141 people in China were killed by lightning strikes during July 2007. (BBC News Online, 2nd August 2007)
- The 14th most popular search term entered into Google is "Google." (Time, 6th June 2007)
- Mathematics and computer sciences have the highest university dropout rate in Britain, with one in ten undergraduates not continuing into a second year of study. Medicine and dentistry have the highest retention rate (98 per cent). (Computing, 2nd August 2007)
