Current Facts 25

Video-Game Industry
The vide-game industry grossed $31 billion in 2007. $10 billion in the US alone. If the industry keeps at its current growth (as indicated by PricewaterhouseCoopers) it will rival the global recorded-music business by about 2010. At this time in the US, it would be about a third the size of the film, radio, or book industry, and about a seventh the size of the television industry.
Best American Science & Nature Writing 2007 pg. 154-55.

Apple Metaphor
Pretend your apple is the planet Earth. Cut the apple into four equal parts, three represent water. Take the one part of dry land and cut in half. One part represents the area too hot and too cold to live on. Now cut a little more than half of what is left. That small part represents areas too rocky or too rainy where food cannot grow. Peel the skin from the remainder, and this is the portion we have to grow food for the world. Earth provides about 58 million square miles of land. Of that land, 23 million sqare miles is considered habitale by humans.
Best American Science & Nature Writing 2007 pg. 180-81.

Banana
The banana "tree" is actually the worldd's largest herb, and the fruit itself is a giant berry.
As noted in Science News Weekly Magazine, 1.12.08, v. 173, i. 2, p 31, Banana the Fate of the fruit that changed the world, book by Dan Koeppel.

China's Diet
China's rapid industrialization and increaseing population, along with a growing dietary preference among its citizens for meat, are straining the country's water resources to the point where food imports will probably be needed to meet the demand in the coming decades.
Science News Weekly Magazine, 1.19.08, v. 173, i. 3, p 36.

Switchgrass Ethanol
Some scientists have questioned wheter the fertilizer and tractor-intensive farming of crops used to make biofuels consumes more energy than it produces. But making ethanol from switchgrass can yield more than five times as much energy as the farmers use to grow crops.
Science News Weekly Magazine, 1.19.08, v. 173, i. 3, p 46.

Pot Gum
Young adults who regularly smoke marijuana face an increased risk of severe gum disease.
Science News Weekly Magazine, 2.9.08, v. 173, i. 6, p 86.

300 Miles Per Gallon
Engineer Steve Fambro relaized that up to 70 percent of the total energy it takes to power a vehicle goes into pushing the air in front of it out of the way. Creating the lowes drag shape for a two occupant sized vehicle (a three wheeled teardrop shape), and using high strength composites (drops the weight to about 1,400 pounds), with an electric motor and a one-cylinder engine, the Aptera will wring 300 miles out of a gallon of ordinary gasoline.
Popular Science, January 2008, p. 11.