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Significant Digits For Thursday, March 16, 2017

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


6 months

USA Hockey pays women who compete in the Olympics only $1,000 per month during the six months every four years that the women play. The athletes say it’s an unsustainable system, and they’re sitting out this month’s Women’s World Championship in protest. [ESPNW]


17 percent

Wells Fargo’s Tim Sloane, who was promoted to CEO in October after an embarrassing scandal at the bank related to fake accounts, got a 17 percent pay raise after his elevation from COO. [Bloomberg]


20 to 200 whales

Humpback whales are amassing in groups of 20 to 200 off the coast of South Africa, something that doesn’t usually happen. Researchers are pretty weirded out and don’t have a good answer as to why the whales are gathering. [Popular Science]


33 seats

The anti-immigrant and populist Freedom Party did not win the Dutch election, bucking a recent international trend. The Liberal Party is projected to win the most seats — 33 of 150 — in the lower house of the Dutch parliament and form a coalition with other parties. No Netherlexit! [Bloomberg]


Nearly 6 million

Estimated number of Adélie penguins in East Antarctica. Whip that one out at parties when the conversation dies out to get things going again. Really though, that’s 3.6 million more penguins than an earlier estimate, and global warming could pose a threat to the dense population. [National Geographic]


400 million to 800 million tons

By weight, earth’s deadliest hunter is the noble spider, which kills and subsequently consumes 400 million to 800 million tons of prey per year, mainly insects, orcs, and elves. Those last two weren’t actually in the study, which was published in the journal The Science of Nature, but rather an earlier report from the journal “The Lord of the Rings.” [BBC]


If you see a significant digit in the wild, send it to @WaltHickey.

Walt Hickey was FiveThirtyEight’s chief culture writer.

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