You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the telling numbers tucked inside the news.
3 percent
Public Policy Polling ran a poll in Minnesota and we learned a bunch of stuff about an election that is months away. Whatever. Most importantly, they got favorability ratings for “Deez Nuts,” which is the best use of polling technology that I can think of. About 89 percent of respondents had no opinion about Deez Nuts (who filed as an independent candidate for president), while 3 percent had a favorable opinion and 8 percent had an unfavorable opinion. [Public Policy Polling]
22 percent
People are not vaccinating their kids against HPV, despite a safe and available shot that will keep them from getting some cancers later in life. Feels like a no-brainer, people. Only 22 percent of boys and 40 percent of girls 13 to 17 have been fully vaccinated against HPV. [FiveThirtyEight]
24 states
Since Aug. 9 of last year, when a police officer shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, there have been at least 984 protests in America over police treatment of black Americans, with 24 states passing police department reforms. [Samuel Sinyangwe]
29 percent
The Treasury is planning to add a new face to the $10 bill, and a McClatchy-Marist poll found that Eleanor Roosevelt is the preferred candidate of 29 percent of Americans. [McClatchyDC]
30.2 percent
56 percent
Percentage of Americans who think the use of atomic bombs in Japan in 1945 was justified, down from 63 percent in 1991. [Pew Research Center]
69 percent
According to a new study of women, birth control pills were found to have a significant effect on mitigating the risk of endometrial cancer. The cancer risk for women who had used the pill was 69 percent of that of women who had not. [Forbes]
$1,300
A human monster stole about $1,300 worth of ice cream from a parked ice cream truck in Brooklyn in New York City. The gutless thief focused his cowardly raid on the Good Humor treats, which everyone knows are the good ones. Also, he got about $2,200 in cash, but it’s the ice cream that’s infuriating: How could you possibly eat that much? It’s like greed and gluttony all tied up in one crime. [GrubStreet]
$24 million
That’s the cost to TLC of canceling “19 Kids and Counting,” the reality show profiling the Duggar family. The show was canceled earlier this year after it was revealed that son Josh Duggar had molested several young girls. [The Hollywood Reporter]
1.2 billion
Britons took an estimated 1.2 billion selfies in 2014. I have nothing to add here. [The Guardian]
If you see a significant digit in the wild, be sure to tweet it to me @WaltHickey.
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