The Lettered League

On September 2, 1969, the internet (Arpanet) consisted of two computers. In 2012, Cisco estimated the number of internet connected devices as over eight and a half billion.

http://www.howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com/

How Many People Are In Space Right Now? How many people are in space right now?

"80% of breeding chickens come from genetic stock developed in the UK. Thanks to our genetics research you get twice as much chicken for a given amount of chicken feed as 20 years ago. Each year we launch a new brand of chicken which will produce many generations over a year or more before a new improved version comes along."

http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/images/publications/eight%20great%20technologies.pdf

Dear Lettered League, why is bacon so damn good?

Storing up questions and slowly answering them for next week! In the mean time, today's fact is that while most viruses are tiny (at only a few 100 nanometers in length and with only a couple of dozen genes) the newly discovered "Pandora Virus" is 1000 times bigger than normal, with over 200 times as many genes. It's believed that giant viruses are largely harmless to humans (for now), but they're so odd (with 94% of their genetic material entirely unknown to science), that anything seems possible. The current "tree of life" fails to describe them, and some folks think they might be from Mars.

Changing View on Viruses: Not So Small After All A newly discovered pandoravirus is 1,000 times the size of the flu virus and has nearly 200 times as many genes. And giant viruses turn out to be everywhere.