You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the telling numbers tucked inside the news.
4-day workweek
64
Tiger Woods had his best round of golf in two years, shooting a 6-under-par 64 at the Wyndham Championship. I assume it was a schadenfreude-fueled round of excellence after every other cheater got busted in the Ashley Madison leak. [The Guardian]
17 cases
Number of Guinea worm cases in the first five months of this year. Former President Jimmy Carter — who announced that he’s significantly paring back his travel to combat cancer — has made it one of his life’s goals to eradicate the parasite. Carter said at a news conference, “I hope the last Guinea worm dies before I do,” which is a great way to go out if I ever heard one. [Vox]
18 days
The pumpkin spice latte returns to Starbucks on Sept. 8. Get ready. As I walked through the sweltering bus terminal of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey this morning, sweating like a pig with the smell of garbage wafting through the air, I just knew that fall was right around the corner. [Refinery 29]
20 centimeters
The thickness of the glass on a planned street-spanning sky pool in London, presumably to be built so commuters can see your pasty, wealthy body as they just try to get through their day. It’ll be the first glass bridge pool connecting two apartment buildings across the street from each other, and might also be the first sign that the neighborhood has been gentrified. [The Guardian]
$120,000
Estimated cost of raising a ballerina, which includes $53,000 of ballet school tuition over 15 years, $32,000 on summer intensive programs, $29,000 on shoes and so on. Needless to say, ballet is a rich person’s art form because of the considerable expense involved. [FiveThirtyEight]
$140,000
The estimated value of having LeBron James tweet about your brand once. [ESPN]
28,443,856
The number of small businesses in the United States, which together employ about 56,062,893 workers. [Forbes]
$52 million
How much Jennifer Lawrence made from June 2014 to June 2015, making her the highest-paid actress of the period. Still, this means that the pay gap between the highest-paid man and woman is $28 million, given that Robert Downey Jr. pulled in an estimated $80 million over the period. [AV Club]
$19.43 billion
How much the United Nations asked for to fund a response to humanitarian crises in Syria, South Sudan and Nepal this year. They’re only about a third of the way there. Have they considered calling the guy building the stupid pool in London? [The Guardian]