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Significant Digits For Wednesday, April 15, 2015

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Less than 1 gram

The FDA sent a letter to the maker of Kind bars saying they have too much saturated fat to be advertised as healthy. The FDA’s standard for a serving of food is less than one gram. [Bloomberg]

38 percent

That’s the percentage of Republicans who think their party is “good” or “excellent” at choosing candidates to run for office, compared to 51 percent of Democrats, according to a new poll from YouGov and the Huffington Post. [The Huffington Post]

53 percent

Percentage of Americans who favor the legal use of marijuana, according to a new Pew survey. [Pew Research Center]

62 percent

North Korea bills itself as a collectivist state, but the country has plenty of black and grey markets. A survey of North Korean defectors found 62 percent reported working outside their official occupations. “Private trade has become so prevalent in recent years that it permeates all levels of society, from the poorest through to the Communist Party and military elites.” [Reuters]

$100

Cost of the new “Guitar Hero Live” from Activision, which includes a redesigned guitar controller that adds $40 to the customary $60 price of a console game. This means that old guitar peripheral collecting dust behind the Blu-Ray player is worthless, so for the love of god can we finally throw that thing out, John. [Business Insider]

630 feet

Construction began Tuesday in Staten Island on a 630 foot high ferris wheel. The attraction will potentially be the tallest ferris wheel in the world — assuming that a construction project in New York City manages to stay on schedule, and unless Dubai completes a planned 690 foot wheel first. [Mashable]

71 million miles

The New Horizons spacecraft took a color photograph of ex-planet Pluto and its biggest moon, Charon, from a mere 71 million miles away. The craft is scheduled to arrive at the dwarf planet in July. [CNET]

$185 million

That’s the budget for the “Angry Birds” movie, doomed to be released next year. Marketing for the film will presumably be handled by that persistent person from High School you did not realize you were still friends with on Facebook. [The AV Club]

$505.9 million

Amount the NCAA distributed to the teams and conferences that played in college football’s 39 Division I bowl games. [The Associated Press]

$960 million

One estimate for how much money will be spent during the 2016 election on online advertisements, up from $270 million during the 2012 election. [Reuters]


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Walt Hickey was FiveThirtyEight’s chief culture writer.

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