From TechCrunch

But the real number of streams/day, we’ve now confirmed with a source at Google, is above 1.2 billion/day worldwide. That matches what we’ve heard from other sources. That pretty much means everyone on the Internet, on average, is watching one YouTube video per day.

Did you know that whale watching draws in 13 million people a year from 119 different countries?  It also generates over $2.1 billion a year.

The Ifaw-commissioned report, compiled by the Australian organisation Economists at Large, found that income from whale watching had doubled over the last decade, with the fastest growth seen in Asia.

In 2008, it concluded, 13 million people went to sea to watch cetaceans in 119 countries.

[BBC New]

Henry Ford came up with the Model T car, but he was also involved in the creation of Kingsford Charcoal.

In the production of his cars, scrap wood was produced. Ford made this scrap into charcoal, and created the Ford Charcoal company. But when a new site was needed for the plant, a relative of his, E.G. Kingsford, brokered the site, and consequently Ford named the charcoal company after him.

[kingsfordcharcoal.com]

A new discovery reveals the least inhabited place on Earth.

The seafloor sediments in the middle of the South Pacific have fewer living cells than anywhere else measured, a new study found.

Oceanographer Steven D’Hondt of the University of Rhode Island and colleagues took a boat out to the middle of the ocean and collected cores, or cylindrical samples of sediment, from the bottom of the sea about 2.5 to 3.7 miles (4 to 6 km) deep.

They found about 1,000 living cells in each cubic centimeter of sediment — a tally that is roughly 1,000 times less than in other seafloor sediments.

“People were previously just taking cores in parts of the ocean fairly close to shore and assuming their results were typical of the ocean as a whole,” D’Hondt told LiveScience.

[From Fox News]

A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified chicken as the biggest source of food poisoning in the United States. The second largest cause was identified as vegetables, fruits and nuts.

Poultry was the most commonly identified source of food poisoning in the United States in 2006, followed by leafy vegetables and fruits and nuts, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

[nytimes.com]

In the early 1920s, when the economy was in its heyday and the real estate business was booming, the Olympia Improvement Corporation drew up plans to turn a small town in Florida named Hobe Sound into the next Hollywood. A downtown was built in Grecian style, with all the streets being named after various Greek gods and goddesses, such as Zeus, Athena, Mars, Saturn, as well as many more. A school was built and named Olympus School and large cement streetlights lined the streets. The town was renamed Picture City and plans were drawn up for a film production studio.

But in 1928, plans were halted. The deadly Okeechobee Hurricane swept through Florida, killing 2,500 people. The real estate boom in Florida plummeted, and the flow of people into the state dwindled. Because of this, the plans for Picture City were abandoned. The town was renamed back to Hobe Sound, and no studio was ever built.

Today, what is known locally as “Old Hobe Sound” is what remains of the old Picture City. Though most are gone, there are still some of the old cement street lights standing, towering over the sidewalks. Olympus School was renamed Apollo School and remained opened until 1962. Now, Hobe Sound is a quaint beach town that is a secret that most locals love to keep, with all the dreams of becoming the star-filled “Picture City” behind them.

[hobesound.org]

Even though we’ve only recently developed GPS systems that give us directions while we’re driving, birds have always been able to find their way during migration. Their sense of direction is dependent on a combination of three “maps” of their own.

Birds who migrate during the day can orient themselves by the position of the sun. Obviously, sunrise and sunset will indicate east and west, but even in the middle of the day they can ascertain where they are by the sun’s position in the sky.

Birds who prefer to travel at night use not only the moon, but they learn the constellations and navigate by them (just like old sailors). The fixed North Star is the most important, but all of the constellations are useful in figuring out time and location.

Finally, birds have a substance called magnetite located just above their beaks. This is a mineral that helps them determine Earth’s magnetic field, so they can navigate using true north.

Birds also have very keen eyesight and will use landmarks like mountains, rivers, even our own manmade buildings and roads to help them find their way.

[more about bird migration]

Hostess Twinkies were invented in 1931 by James Dewar, manager of Continental Bakeries’ Chicago factory. He envisioned the product as a way of using the company’s thousands of shortcake pans which were otherwise employed only during the strawberry season. Originally called Little Shortcake Fingers, they were renamed Twinkie Fingers, and finally “Twinkies.”

[shelf life of a twinkie] [wikipedia]

It has been shown that if you scare or threaten a Horned Toad it actually squirts blood from its own eyes to attempt to protect itself and distract his predator! But don’t feel bad for the toad, it doesn’t hurt him at all, it just gives him time so he can hop away.

[more info]

Did you know that Saturn’s moon Titan has volcanoes that spurt water?

Warm is a subjective term on Titan, where the average temperature is -290 degrees Fahrenheit (-179 degrees Celsius). One measure of the cold there is its volcanoes. While those on Earth spew molten rock, liquid water streams from Titan’s volcanoes.

[space.com]