You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
42.1 percent of innings
The workload of starting pitchers has fallen for years, and this season 42.1 per cent of innings were pitched by bullpen pitchers, a record in Major League Baseball. But things are different this postseason. Through Oct. 13, starters had already made 12 outings of at least 101 pitches, significantly higher than last year’s postseason total of three outings exceeding 100 pitches. [FiveThirtyEight]
46 years old
MIT economics professor Esther Duflo, one of this year’s three winners of the Nobel prize for economics, is only the second woman to win the prize since its inception in 1969, and the youngest recipient at age of 46. Duflo was awarded the prize, along with her husband Abhijit Banerjee and Harvard University professor Michael Kremer, for their work on effective investments for fighting poverty in India and Africa. Duflo said she hoped her win would inspire many other women to continue working “and many other men to give them the respect that they deserve like every single human being.” [BBC News]
234,234 female truckers
According to the American Trucking Associations, the number of women in the trucking industry has grown by 68 percent between 2010 and 2018. While women represent only 6.6 percent of the industry’s total workforce, there is no gender distinction when it comes to pay. Other reasons for the increase in female truckers include continued growth in e-commerce as well as a tight labor market. [Wall Street Journal]
71 days of silence
For 71 days, the six million mobile subscribers in the Kashmir Valley could not make phone calls to doctors, customers, and loved ones as part of a complete communications blackout imposed by the Indian government. On Monday, cellphones finally started to ring again after the government partially restored service to those caught in a longstanding territorial dispute between India and Pakistan. But people on prepaid billing plans, more than 60 percent of the area’s subscribers, could not access the restored signals and internet access in the region is still shut down. [New York Times]
1,600 tainted phone booths
Problems at WeWork continue to pile up after the office-sharing company recently warned clients that approximately 1,600 phone booths at some of its offices in Canada and the U.S. are tainted with formaldehyde. An email obtained by CNBC says a member’s experience with odor and eye irritation led to an analysis and tests, which led to results indicating “potentially elevated levels of formaldehyde.” Founder Adam Neumann had to step down from his position as CEO in September after numerous news reports of his questionable style of leadership, conflicts of interests, and eccentric aspirations, including a desire to live forever. [CNBC]
8:30 a.m.
New legislation signed earlier this week means that middle schools and high schools in California will officially phase in later morning start times over the next three years, in line with research on sleep, study habits, and other benefits. The law stating middle schools cannot begin earlier than 8 a.m. and high schools no earlier than 8:30 a.m. was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom. Opposition includes the California School Boards Association, the California Teachers Association, as well as critics who cited parental work schedules and after-school activity schedules. [Washington Post]