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Significant Digits For Thursday, Aug. 20, 2015

You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the telling numbers tucked inside the news.

$525

The price of a 45-minute intravenous dose of the club drug ketamine at a clinic in New York City for the severely depressed and suicidal. In recent years, there has been a wave of doctors opening facilities that specialize in using the sedative pharmaceutical to remedy deep psychological pain in patients. [Bloomberg]


9 percent

“Deez Nuts” is, from a paperwork perspective, a legitimate independent candidate for the presidency — and is polling at 9 percent in North Carolina, according to a new Public Policy Polling survey. [Public Policy Polling]


1,078

Ever hear of p-hacking? It’s the process of narrowing or widening a data set to obtain a publishable scientific result. It’s common, and it’s surprisingly easy, as you’ll see in this FiveThirtyEight interactive graphic: Of 1,800 possible combinations of variables, 1,078 will yield a publishable result! [FiveThirtyEight]


3,173 percent

Each state has their preferred vice, and in New York, it’s the noble pickleback — a staunch shot of whiskey promptly followed by a sour, palate-cleansing shot of pickle juice. According to Foursquare, New Yorkers mention the shot-chaser combo 3,173 percent more than residents of other states. [Time Out New York]

$126,900

Michael Jordan is suing defunct grocery store chain Dominick’s over the use of his name to sell products. This has raised the question of what exactly “Michael Jordan,” the proper noun, is worth. It’s $126,900, according to an expert witness called by the chain in the civil trial. [The Chicago Tribune]


200,000

The approximate number of criminal truancy cases against children and parents in Texas in 2013. Starting next month, students in the Lone Star State will no longer face charges for playing hooky. And courts have to wipe the charges from students’ records. [The Texas Observer]


$220 million

The amount of money raised for ALS research through the ice bucket challenge, a funding campaign that went viral last year and is beginning to yield results. Money raised through the challenge helped support recently published research by Johns Hopkins scientists, who say their study is an important step toward finding a cure for or slowing the disease. [CBS News]


$538 million

The amount of revenue that the cosmetics company It Works! says it had last year. The multilevel-marketing company relies on a network of distributors using digital social networks like Facebook to recruit new customers. [Tech Insider]


274

The United Arab Emirates has the biggest gender imbalance in the world, with 274 men for every 100 women. That’s primarily due to the large numbers of male foreign workers who move to the country without their families. [The Washington Post]


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Walt Hickey was FiveThirtyEight’s chief culture writer.

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