More than 36,000 people die from influenza each year in the U.S., and 200,000 others are hospitalized because of the illness.
Source: National Institutes of Health
Stories by FactCheck.org
April 28, 2009
In countries with high rates of malaria, the disease accounts for up to 40 percent of public health expenditures and up to 60 percent of outpatient health clinic visits.
Source: World Health Organization
April 27, 2009
Most of the world’s cases of malaria and deaths from the disease occur in sub-Saharan Africa.
Source: World Health Organization
April 26, 2009
Honey is 80 percent sugars and 20 percent water.
Source: Department of Agriculture
April 25, 2009
Honeybees are herbivores — but they can turn to cannibalism when stressed.
Source: Department of Agriculture
April 24, 2009
The Library of Congress was created on this day in 1800, when President John Adams approved spending $5,000 for “such books as may be necessary for the use of congress.”
Source: Library of Congress
April 23, 2009
A worker honey bee’s brain is only a cubic millimeter in size, but it has the densest neuropile tissue of any animal.
Source: Department of Agriculture
April 22, 2009
Today is Earth Day. The first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970, the same year the Environmental Protection Agency was created by President Nixon.
Source: EPA
April 21, 2009
The largest recorded lobster, caught off the coast of Nova Scotia in 1934, weighed 44.4 pounds and was at least 100 years old, according to scientists.
Source: National Geographic
April 20, 2009
The two largest religious affiliations in the U.S. are Evangelical Protestant (26.3 percent of adults say they belong to churches in that group) and Catholic (23.9 percent).
Source: Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life