You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the telling numbers tucked inside the news.
6 reactions
Facebook has added “love,” “haha,” “wow,” “sad” and “angry” to its classic “like,” as the available reactions to posts. Still no “lassitude,” “torpor” or “ennui,” however. [New York]
Nearly 20 percent
Nearly 20 percent of Donald Trump’s voters disagree with the Emancipation Proclamation — which freed slaves during the Civil War — according to national YouGov data. Five percent of Marco Rubio’s supporters held the same view. [The Upshot]
26 percent chance
Woe, Canada. There’s just a 26 percent chance that any of the NHL’s seven Canadian franchises will make the playoffs this season, according to an analysis by my colleague Neil Paine. The last time no Canadian team made the playoffs was the 1969-70 season. What’s more, Canadian teams are in the midst of a 23-year Stanley Cup drought. [FiveThirtyEight]
30 meteorite impacts
The largest meteor since 2013 hit the earth a couple of weeks ago. The meteor landed in the ocean off the coast of Brazil in early February, with the force of 13,000 tons of TNT. It was the largest meteor strike since an impact in Russia in 2013 that injured more than 1,000 people. That strike had the force of 500,000 tons of TNT. Turns out, though, that most of these hits go unnoticed, and there are a few dozen each year. The majority of the earth’s surface, after all, is uninhabited water. [Christian Science Monitor]
127 games
A little less than two years ago, Atlanta Hawks sharpshooter Kyle “Hot Sauce” Korver set an NBA record by hitting a three-pointer in 127 consecutive games. Last night, Steph Curry, who continues to ruin everything for anyone not in a Warriors jersey, tied that record just 78 seconds into Golden State’s game against the Miami Heat. No word yet on whether he can best this adorable girl at flinging toast into the toaster. [AP]
About 1,500 listings
Airbnb admitted to purging roughly 1,500 listings from its records before releasing data to regulators, a move that was ostensibly meant to publicize the company’s transparency. The cleanse made it appear that fewer professional hosts with multiple listings used the site. These were the exact types of listings that were of concern to regulators. [Fusion]
$10,000 fine
In Puerto Rico, you can now be fined up to $10,000 for raising the price of condoms. Ditto insect repellent, hand sanitizer and tissues. The price freeze comes in response to the spread of the Zika virus there. Puerto Rico has had nine confirmed cases of Zika, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [CNN Money]
200,000 advertisers
Instagram now has over 200,000 advertisers. Three-quarters of those advertisers are from outside the U.S. One analyst estimates that the company will reap $1 billion in ad revenue in 2016. But like, life is just one big advertisement, am I right? [USA Today]
245,000 mutant mosquitos
On a typical morning, Cecilia Kosmann drives around Brazil and releases nearly a quarter million mosquitos from a van. She’s been repeating the exercise daily for 10 months. These mosquitos are special, though. They are genetically modified to pass a deadly gene to their offspring, in hopes of quelling the Zika virus, which has been linked to thousands of cases of birth defects, malaria (which kills around 438,000 people a year), and dengue (which claims around 12,500). Kosmann’s organization, Oxitec, reported that their special mosquitos had succeeded in reducing the wild mosquito population by 82 percent. [BuzzFeed]
$400 million donation
Phil Knight, the co-founder and chairman of Nike, donated $400 million to Stanford University to recruit grad students to tackle “society’s most intractable problems.” The gift matches the previous record for biggest gift to a university, from a hedge fund tycoon to improve Harvard’s engineering program. Hey Phil, Significant Digits goes a long way in tempering society’s most intractable problems, and its authors are waist-deep in student debt. You can Venmo me. [New York Times]
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If you see a significant digit in the wild this week, send it to me: @ollie.