Episode 4

Meth

Scientists have discovered that using a combination of Bupropion to raise dopamine levels and Naltrexone which is an opioid blocker, they have greater success at getting people off Methamphetamine addiction. Of those addicted and using this new treatment, around 10% of patients were clean for three months, compared to old treatments that have a success rate of around 1%.

YouTube

According to a report in 2020, the percentage of YouTube videos that broke their terms and conditions was placed at about 0.18% of all their content.
This might seem very small but with over 30,000 hours of brand new content being uploaded every single hour, that equates to 48 hours worth of harmful content per hour being uploaded.

Death Penalty

When Virginia ended the state death penalty, over 1,600 people had been executed in its 413-year history.
During the 20th century, 377 inmates were executed of which 296 of them were black prisoners.

Container Ships

Container ships similar to the one that got stuck in the Suez Canal, are usually insured for $100 - $150 million for damage to the hull or machinery. That doesn't include the insurance for the cargo on board.

American Bald Eagle

In 1963, a survey of American Bald Eagles found that there were just 417 nesting pairs left in the US.
Thanks to wildlife conservation and protection of these birds, in 2020 they recorded 71,400 nesting pairs.

Pandemic Takeaways

During the pandemic, a lot of major food restaurants were facing a tough economic situation when they were not allowed to open to paying guests.
To raise money, they converted many of their restaurants into Ghost Kitchens and set up small independent takeaway establishments delivering food by an app.
Applebee's set up Cosmic Wings, Chilli's set up It's Just Wings and Tender Shack set up Outback Steakhouse.
It proved popular with Tender Shack seeing approximately $75 million in profit from their side venture.

The Oscars Adverts

The last Oscars ceremony generated over $130 million in advertising revenue for the event, with commercial breaks commanding $1.8 - £2 million for a 30-second slot.
Verizon, Rolex and Cadillac were three of the biggest advertisers for The Oscars, dropping around $10 - $13 million each to promote their products.

Apophis

An asteroid known as Apophis, named after the Egyptian god of chaos and darkness, passes close to Earth every few years.
Measuring approximately 340 meters in diameter it would cause a major catastrophe to all life on Earth if it ever hit us.
The next time it is going to get close to us is in 2029 and then 2036 and should pass us by about 32,000 kilometres.
According to NASA, they have studied the risk level of Apophis striking the Earth as far as 2068 and do not believe there is any risk to life on Earth.

NFT

According to a study, the average NFT costs 2.3kg of carbon emissions to produce and send an NFT to someone, and they believe over the average lifespan of an NFT it will generate approximately 212 kg of CO2 emissions.
To put that into context. an NFT is going to generate the same amount of CO2 emissions as driving a petrol car for 500 miles.

Meat Eaters

A study in the US  in 2019 found that 85% of people considered themselves to be meat eaters.
By 2020 a new study found that the figure had dropped to 71%, with 34% who considered themselves to be meat eaters saying that they would be reducing the amount of meat they consume each week.

Lost Cargo

In a typical year, around 1,200 containers are lost at sea due to bad weather, accidents and other incidents.
In 2021, there were so many incidents involving cargo ships spilling their loads, that over 2,900 were recorded lost in the first 6 months of the year.

Adverts

The New York City Subway has adverts and billboards which are all controlled by Outfront Media. According to Outfront Media, billboard and transit advertising demand are falling, with billboard sales dropping by 36% and transit ad sales dropping by 76%. During the Spring of 2021, it became so bad for advertising sales, that Outfront Media were offering the chance to advertise on a billboard for a 90% discount, and some adverts remained in place for weeks after their contract ran out because Outfront Media would rather have an old advert showing than a blank space.

Baby Chicks

Worldwide, over 7 billion male chicks are culled because they are not egg-producing.
Germany and France are planning to outlaw the practice due to the success of science and technology in producing female chicks during fertilisation.
The US egg companies also agreed to ban the culling in 2020, but now 2 years later and little has been done to follow through with the promise. The reason for not rushing to outlaw it? It is 2 cents an egg cheaper to cull males than use specialist techniques to produce only female chicks.

Doomsday Cult

The Doomsday Cult in Japan which carried out a Sarin gas attack on an underground railway in 1995, is back and recruiting new members.
According to Japanese security services, the cult is no longer recruiting from bookstores due to the lack of interest in physical books by impressionable students but has resorted to targeting lonely university students who are wanting to find friends and are struggling to find them online.
According to one press release from the government, over 60 students are recruited each year from this tactic, and universities are now alerting all students to the dangers.

Real Estate

It seems like a great way to make money but being a realtor in America is not the money-maker it would seem. In fact, only the top 1% who have contacts and clients in New York or Los Angeles seem to make life-changing money selling homes.
In 2019, the average inexperienced realtor (one that had only been selling for 2 years or less) made an average of $8,900 a year. For those with longer experience to whether downturns, the average yearly revenue for them was little more than $49,000.
The reason for this is down to too many realtors and too few properties to sell.
A survey in 2021 found that there were 1.4 million realtors in the US, but only 1.04 million properties were listed for sale.

Railways

In the US every year, 57 tonnes of freight is transported by train for every single American.
While freight trains are a safer way to transport goods, that doesn't mean they are completely safe. In 2019 there were over 340 derailments of trains in a single year, of which 24 of them were derailments involving hazardous materials. That is over 150 train cars filled with hazardous materials that ended up in a derailment incident in just a single year.

Cyclones

The National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration have begun to use upper atmosphere monitoring and new supercomputers to predict the strength and direction of tropical cyclones by as much as 15% more accurately, which in real terms gives scientists an additional 36 hours to prepare for things like evacuations, etc.

Californian Aquaducts

The canals and aqueducts of California help provide water to 35 million people and supply the irrigation needs of 5.7 million acres of farmland. They are also the biggest drain on the power grid pumping that water everywhere.
Scientists have suggested placing solar panels over the 4,000 miles of the canals and aqueducts for two purposes. To generate over 13 gigawatts of renewable energy and to stop the wasteful evaporation of over 63 billion gallons of water each year.

Avatar

To prepare for the release of Avatar: The Way Of Water, the studio decided to re-release the original Avatar movie in theatres across China.
The movie ended up generating over $44 million dollars in just 10 days which made it one of the best-performing movies in China, even though it was a 13-year-old movie that had been released a second time.

Homeschooling

In the US, for the past 8 years up to 2020, the number of students that were homeschooled (taught at home by their parents, not taught by a school online) was a constant 3.3% of the child population.
However, due to the fears of COVID-19 and several random school shootings, 2020 saw that figure grow to 5.4% and by 2021 it was up to 11.1%, suggesting parents are rapidly losing faith in schools being safe places to send their children.