Significant Digits For Tuesday, April 28, 2015

You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the telling numbers tucked inside the news. To receive this as an email newsletter, please subscribe.

3 percent

Share of federal spending this year going toward scientific research, down from nearly 10 percent in 1968, at the height of the space race. A group of MIT scientists said Monday that the decline is threatening innovation. Clearly the innovation-industrial complex has yet again found a way to jam itself into American politics, am I right? [Reuters]

4

Number of wins by NBA teams after falling behind by three games to none in the first round of this year’s playoffs. Six of the eight best-of-seven series started out with one team winning the first three games, and three of those series remain alive, with one team — the Bucks, against the Bulls — winning twice after falling behind 3-0. [ESPN]

15 percent

Proportion of Boston residents who said in a poll that they believe Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be executed for his role in the bombing of the 2013 Boston marathon, according to a new poll from the Boston Globe. The trial takes place in a city and state that have lower levels of support of the death penalty than does the U.S. overall. [The Boston Globe]

25 percent

National success rate of insanity defenses in felony trials. The defense of James Holmes — who killed 12 people and wounded 70 in a 2012 shooting at an Aurora, Colorado movie theater — is banking on an insanity defense to avoid prison time or the death penalty. [AP]

68

Total number of ingredients required to make the items on the Chipotle food menu. The fast casual burrito chain intends to go GMO-free, which will entail making sure every one of those 68 ingredients is not genetically modified. [The New York Times]

99.7 percent

The claimed accuracy rate of a new self-testing kit for HIV that produces results within 15 minutes and is now on sale in the U.K. [AFP]

500

As riots in Baltimore continued, the governor of Maryland said he is sending 500 state troopers to the city. Gov. Larry Hogan also is requesting up to 5,000 police officers from neighboring areas, and he activated the Maryland National Guard. The unrest began on the day of the funeral and memorial service for Freddie Gray, a man whose spine was broken while in police custody earlier this month and who died on April 19. [The Baltimore Sun]

16,000

The approximate number of truck drivers who service the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Several hundred drivers staged a walk off Monday, with what appeared to be minimal impact on international trade. Some of the port’s drivers are engaged in an ongoing dispute with shipping companies to be classified as employees rather than independent contractors. [AP]

More than 30,000

A mile-wide tornado knocked out power for more than 30,000 people in north-central Texas. [NBC News]

44,828

First rule of not getting your car stolen: Do not leave your keys in your car. Having watched my share of action movies, I assumed people understood that leaving their keys above the visor was the best way to get their car lifted by a protagonist. Not the case! Thefts where the keys were left within the vehicle rose 14 percent in 2014 from two years earlier, to 44,828. [Bloomberg]

If you haven’t already, you really need to sign up for the Significant Digits newsletter — be the first to learn about the numbers behind the news.

And, as always, if you see a significant digit in the wild, tweet it to me @WaltHickey.

FiveThirtyEight