You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
More than 300 kilograms
Iran says it has now amassed more than 300 kilograms of low-enriched uranium, surpassing the limit established by the 2015 nuclear deal, from which President Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. last year. Iran, according to Associated Press, is also threatening to “raise its uranium enrichment closer to weapons-grade levels” in less than a week if it’s not offered a new deal by Europe. [Associated Press]
41 percent reduction
Mike Dunleavy, the governor of Alaska, cut more than $130 million in state funding from the University of Alaska late last week. All told, the cuts represent a 41 percent reduction in funding from the year before. It’s the largest cut in a century of the university’s history, and is equivalent to the elimination of some 1,300 full-time faculty and staff jobs, according to the university’s president. “Whole chunks of the university are going to have to disappear,” said the president of the Board of Regents. [Anchorage Daily News]
40 years ago
Forty years ago yesterday, the Sony Walkman, the first affordable portable music player, debuted. I haven’t spoken a word out loud to another human since. [CNN]
$24.8 million
What time is it? Quarterly Federal Election Commission fundraising report filing time! And Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg announced that his campaign raised a hefty $24.8 million from more than 294,000 donors during the second quarter, which is much higher than the $7.1 million the campaign raised during the first quarter. Candidates have until July 15 to file, though those with big totals tend to flaunt them early. [The Washington Post]
7 people in 100
There is a widely believed psychological notion that smiling, whether you feel like it or not, can make you happier — the “facial feedback hypothesis.” But a new study in Psychological Bulletin, examining 50 years of data and some 300 experiments, found that the effect, if it exists, is quite small. Only seven smilers in 100, ceteris paribus, can expect to feel happier than if they hadn’t smiled at all. :) Nope, didn’t work. [NPR]
More than 2,000 cameras
New York City plans to install the country’s “largest urban network of automated speed cameras,” increasing the existing number tenfold to 2,000 cameras in 750 locations. While research shows that such cameras reduce crashes, injuries and deaths — which seems good — a spokesperson for something called the National Motorists Association complained that “New York City is going to become just one big speed trap” — which also seems good. [The New York Times]
Love digits? Find even more in FiveThirtyEight’s book of math and logic puzzles, “The Riddler.”
If you see a significant digit in the wild, please send it to @ollie.