Five things we learned last month

Photos: AP/Daniel Ochoa de Olza, Charlie Llewellin, UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, AP/Arnulfo Franco, Lorrie Graham

We’re working hard to make sure issue #16 of Delayed Gratification, out in early December, will be our best issue yet. In the process, we’ve been making lots of discoveries. Here are the five most interesting facts from our research in October.

1) In this year’s World Cup, the Spanish squad was worth the most, with a combined player value of $916 million.

2) Fearing he would eventually be shut down by the US Drug Enforcement Administration, Alexander Shulgin, the so-called Godfather of ecstasy, published two 800-page books detailing the molecules he discovered, their effects and how to produce them. ‘PiHKAL’, short for Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved and ‘TiKHAL’, or Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved are both part chemical textbook, part autobiography.

3) According to UNESCO, there are currently 2,471 endangered languages in the world. 197 of them are from India, making it the country with the most disappearing languages.

4) In 2008, there were an estimated 1,385 gang members in Panama. That figure has now more than quintupled and is close to 7,500.

5) In the island nation of Nauru, half the adult population has type 2 diabetes due to the islanders’ diet, which is comprised almost exclusively of imported processed food.

Posted on Monday, November 3rd, 2014 - Categories: From the team, Things we've learned.