You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the telling numbers tucked inside the news.
41 percent
An NBC News/Marist poll of Democratic voters in New Hampshire found that 41 percent would support Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders were the election held that day, 9 points more than Hillary Clinton. This poll included Vice President Joe Biden in the mix, who with 16 percent support played a bit of a spoiler in the matchup. But, uh, Feel The Bern? [Reuters]
42 percent
The share of the domestic tablet market that is controlled by Samsung and Apple, with Amazon’s tablets accounting for less than 1 percent. Amazon would like to change that and will begin selling a 6-inch tablet for $50. [The Wall Street Journal]
Nearly 100 stones
A “superhenge” that makes Stonehenge look like a bunch of Lincoln Logs someone left on a playground has been found nearly 2 miles south of the famous site, 3 feet underground. The arrangement — which, come on, we’re talking some big rocks here, not anything really that mind-blowing — is an estimated 4,500 years old. I’m sure you could go and check out the 3-D visualizations cooked up to portray it, but seriously, we are just talking about some rocks. [BBC]
99 counties
It’s trendy for presidential aspirants to attempt “The Full Grassley,” a tour of all 99 Iowa counties named after Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley. In past election cycles, Rick Santorum and John Edwards enjoyed success at the Iowa caucuses after completing the Grassley, but Michele Bachmann didn’t. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker announced that he intends to complete the task. [The New York Times]
946 Mediterranean cypress trees
After a devastating fire swept through a 50,000-acre experimental tree site in 2012, a pair of scientist brothers found that the Mediterranean cypress is functionally fireproof, given that almost 1,000 of them survived. Now they’re trying to see if the trees can be planted as a fire barrier in forests. [Washington Post]
20,000 refugees
British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that the U.K. would accept up to 20,000 Syrian refugees in the next five years, a number that political opponents say is too low. The refugees will be allowed to apply for asylum after five years. [The Guardian]
$3.03 million
How much Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio and groups affiliated with his campaign have raised from donors connected to the tech industry, leading the pack of presidential hopefuls by a substantial margin. That’s mostly from $3 million in contributions to his super PAC from Oracle founder Larry Ellison. [Recode]
$4.48 billion
Total domestic box office haul from May 1 to Labor Day, which still trails 2013 (before factoring in inflation). Box office returns were up 10.4 percent over last summer. [Variety]
$5 billion
Potential sales of Star Wars merch in 2016, according to a market research report. Friday was “Force Friday,” a made-up holiday where a bunch of Star Wars stuff went on sale. From a numbers perspective, Star Wars is a very successful toy franchise that happens to make movies every now and again. As always, full disclosure is that Disney owns both FiveThirtyEight and Star Wars, but I don’t see a complimentary BB-8 rolling around my apartment right now, so I’m not exactly feeling the synergy if you catch my drift. [The Week]
$6.6 billion
Estimated amount Germany will spend in 2015 to deal with the approximately 800,000 migrants who are expected to enter the nation by the end of the year. Last week Germany and Austria opened their borders to refugees from Syria and other countries. [NBC News]
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