You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
1 year
After a failed one-year experiment, nudity is returning to Playboy magazine as of the March 2017 issue. Despite repeated pleas, no, Significant Digits is done with the pornography business and this feature will never revert to the sordid imagery my predecessors relied on to sell newsletters. [USA Today]
24 days
After serving in the role for 24 whole days, former general Michael Flynn has stepped down as President Trump’s national security adviser. He resigned after his position became untenable following revelations he had misled members of the administration, including Vice President Mike Pence, about his discussions with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. late last year. [The Washington Post, The New York Times]
48 percent
A new poll found that the three left-of-center German political parties would win a combined 48 percent of the vote in forthcoming parliamentary elections. That would be enough to win the contest, build a government and oust Chancellor Angela Merkel and her conservative Christian Democrats from power. [Reuters]
288.93 boxes
Citrus greening disease is making for more watery oranges, which means producers of orange juice need to crush more oranges to make the same amount of O.J. concentrate. It used to be that producers needed about 250 boxes of oranges to make one ton of concentrated juice. In the Brazilian orange season that began in July, watery oranges meant it took 288.93 boxes to produce one ton of juice. [Bloomberg]
30,000 British pounds
How much Queen Elizabeth II is willing to pay to have someone handle her social media game. (30,000 pounds is about $37,500 at current exchange rates.) A one-year position is open for anyone who thinks they’re up to the job. [Mental Floss]
2 million British pounds
The thieves behind an elaborate heist of 2 million pounds worth of antique books — including tomes by Copernicus, Galileo, E.L. James, Newton, da Vinci and Dante (I was joking about that third one) — may run into issues fencing the haul. Good luck rolling into the shop with a 1566 copy of De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium and attempting to claim it isn’t hot. [The Guardian]
If you see a significant digit in the wild, send it to @WaltHickey.