# data[].attributes.body
To contribute to this, please email your activity to lucy.white@mei.org.uk

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
(Image: Getty Images)

A woman was scammed after a man pretending to be a Russian astronaut convinced her to pay him thousands after striking up a romantic relationship with her.

The shameless con artist found the 65-year-old Japanese woman on Instagram back in June and showered her in proclamations of love, promising to marry her when the pair were finally united in person.

The pair would regularly text back and forth on the Japanese messaging app LINE, with the fake astronaut declaring "I want to start my life in Japan," and "saying this 1,000 times won't be enough, but I'll keep saying it. I love you," according to news outlet TV Asahi.
READ MORE: Inside cyberhouse built to withstand nukes and zombies that could tempt Elon Musk
The only catch, the man claimed, was that he was stuck in space and landing back on Earth was no cheap feat.

The fake astronaut claimed to be based at the International Space Station and posted generic pictures of space to his Instagram page in a bid to trick followers.

He claimed that in order to land in Japan and marry his beloved he needed to pay expensive landing fees, not to mention having to acquire a rocket to actually get to Earth.

Thinking she had found love, the woman, who remained anonymous, paid her would-be fiancé about 4.4 million yen (£27,000) in five instalments from August 19 until September 5.

However, as he continued to demand more cash, his victim grew suspicious and reported him to police, who are now investigating the case as a "romance scam".

Romance scams - where a fraudster creates a fake online persona and tricks their victims into thinking they're in a romantic relationship in order to gain their trust - have been on the rise not only in Japan but across the world, and the number of UK victims falling for them soared over lockdown, UK Finance reports.

It's not just online that people are swindled out of cash by pseudo-romantic partners - earlier this year a woman was conned out of £35,000 by her dream guy after they met in a pub in Bristol.

Alison Wood, 51, met her "Turkish Warrior" ex-partner, Umit Sucu, 44, in 2018 when he told her he was toasting his divorce - but Wood later found out he was still married to another woman and had been using her for cash.

Wood said: "Looking back, I think how could I have just believed him? But I loved him and wanted to do everything I could to help his situation.

"My mum died shortly after meeting him. He even helped us arrange the funeral.

"It got to the point where he was such a big part of my life, I never thought to question his intentions."

Sucu pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud and was sentenced to 15 months in prison, suspended for two years.
READ NEXT:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Woman scammed by 'Russian astronaut' who asked for cash 'to land back on Earth'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A man claiming to be a Russian astronaut who was stuck in space struck up a romantic relationship with an unsuspecting woman back on Earth and vowed to marry her when he touched back down

# data[].attributes.headline
Short video on astronaut scam and other romance scams

# data[].attributes.subject
Short video on astronaut scam and other romance scams

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
COVID-19 and the rising cost of living

Fraudsters are always adapting their phishing attacks, and recent emerging trends have exploited the COVID-19 pandemic and rising cost of living.

In the latest year, 4.8% of all fraud was perceived to be coronavirus-related, rising to 6.3% of all cyber fraud. In one campaign, victims received text messages apparently from the NHS claiming they had been in close contact with someone who had the Omicron variant.

The message provides a link to a website claiming to be hosted by the NHS where they can book a test, prompting them to provide personal information and pay a delivery fee.

Phishing attacks have exploited the COVID-19 pandemic

Download this image

.png (202.0 kB)

The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) at City of London Police, the national policing lead on fraud, has also identified new trends, as phishing attacks target those in a difficult financial situation.

They include the promise of energy and council tax rebates or encouraging people to apply for a "cost of living payment", mimicking genuine government support packages.

Of those who replied to or clicked on a link in a phishing message, more than a third (35%) said they did so for financial or material gain, and 30% to pay an invoice or bill, according to the TCSEW.

Some phishing messages mimic genuine government support

Download this image

.png (146.3 kB)

In the two weeks to 5 August 2022, more than 1,500 reports were made to the Suspicious Emails Reporting Service (SERS), run by the National Cyber Security Centre, about scam emails pretending to be legitimate energy rebates from Ofgem, the energy regulator in Great Britain.

The emails use the Ofgem logo and colours and have the subject header "Claim your bill rebate now".

It is shameful that in a time of financial hardship, criminal are targeting members of the public by claiming they are entitled to receiving rebates and refunds. If an email is genuine, the company will never push you into handing over your details.

Detective Chief Inspector Hayley King, City of London Police

Cifas, a UK fraud prevention service, said there is a "real concern due to the rise in living costs, criminals will look to target loan products and deferred credit services."

Common campaigns they have encountered include fraudsters posing as utility providers offering deals on energy bills, or competitions to win fuel vouchers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Fraudsters send messages over email, text or social media, posing as trusted organisations to trick people into handing over money or personal details. But who is most at risk, and what can we do to protect ourselves?

# data[].attributes.headline
5 min video of Baby Boomers trying vegan sausage

# data[].attributes.subject
5 min video of Baby Boomers trying vegan sausage

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Baby Boomers Try Vegan Sausage | LIVEKINDLY

# data[].attributes.headline
Our world in data - What share of people say they are vegetarian, vegan, or flexitarian?

# data[].attributes.subject
Our world in data - What share of people say they are vegetarian, vegan, or flexitarian?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
There is a growing interest in the environmental, ethical, and health impacts of our diets.

To understand patterns of food consumption we can look at market sales data - how much meat, dairy, and plant products we sell. This tells us about countries as a whole - we present this type of data here - but this doesn't tell us about the variation within a population.

If we want to know about this variation we can rely on survey data on how people describe their dietary preferences. There is, unfortunately, a lack of long-term data on this. But we can look at recent developments.

YouGov, the polling group in the UK, surveys around 2000 adults every six months about their dietary preferences. In this article, we present the latest data and we will update this data every six months with the most recent results.

What share of British adults identify as vegetarian, vegan, or flexitarian?

These surveys ask adults which of six options best describes their dietary preferences. The six options are meat-eater, flexitarian, pescetarian, vegetarian, vegan, or none of these. Each respondent is only allowed to pick one of the six options. In the accompanying box, we provide a description of each of these diets, as YouGov describes them in their survey.

The results are shown in the chart.

These results are very similar to those from other countries.

In a 2018 Gallup poll from the US, 5% of American adults identified as vegetarian, and 2% as vegan.

In a wider 2018 poll from Ipsos Mori - spanning 28 countries - 5% of respondents identified as vegetarian, 3% as vegan, and a further 3% as a pescetarian. However, this poll showed very different results for some countries. For example, one in five people in India identified as vegetarian.

The YouGov survey describes these dietary choices in the following way:

Meat-eater: eats meat and poultry (and does not describe as being mainly vegetarian)

Flexitarian: mainly vegetarian, but occasionally eat meat or fish

Pescetarian: eat fish but do not eat meat or poultry

Vegetarian: do not eat any meat, poultry, game, fish, or shellfish

Plant-based / Vegan: do not eat dairy products, eggs, or any other animal product

Diets by age: Younger adults are less likely to eat meat

When we look at these survey results by age we see that younger people are more likely to be non meat-eaters. The breakdown of UK responses by age is shown in the chart.

The two youngest demographics - the under-50s - are more likely to report being vegetarian, vegan, or pescetarian.

Again, this finding that younger adults are more likely to identify as vegetarian or vegan is consistent with results from other countries. Polls from the US and other countries find the same result. Averaged across the 28 countries included in the 2018 Ipsos survey, 6% of under-35s reported to be vegetarian, compared to 3% in the over-35s.

From an environmental perspective, this is good news. Eating less meat is one of the most effective ways that someone can reduce their carbon footprint.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Max Roser, Pablo Rosado, Bastian Herre, and Marcel Gerber for feedback and suggestions on this work.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What share of people say they are vegetarian, vegan, or flexitarian?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Most people still eat some meat, but surveys suggest that many are adopting a diet with less animal products. Especially young people.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Online spam is a problem we're all familiar with, whether it's emails, texts, or social media DMs, most of us receive some sort of spam every day. But just how big is the problem, and how much has spam exploded in recent years? Could AI have had an impact on the growing levels of online spam?

We've put together some of the most intriguing spam statistics for 2023, alongside data from our own survey to investigate where the most spam comes from and just how much money spammers can make.

162 billion spam emails are sent every day, with 49% of the 333 billion daily emails sent, considered spam (numbers recorded for 2022).

The majority of people (96.8%) have received spam messages in some form.

The U.S. sends the most spam emails, with 8 billion per day on average, but Greece sends the highest proportion of spam emails, with 95% of emails sent containing spam.

The most common topic of spam emails is prizes and giveaways, followed by job opportunities, and banking.

Over two-thirds (68.8%) of people who had received spam and/or phishing messages reported their mental health being impacted at least a little as a result.

Financial institutions are most commonly targeted by business phishing attacks, with 27.7% of scam messages being received by companies in this sector.

Delivery services were the most common subject of spam text messages in the U.S. in the first half of 2023, with over 1.1 billion scam texts relating to this topic.

The most common victims of scam calls are men aged between 35 and 44, with 46% of people in this group falling victim to a telephone scam.

The ten countries that send the most spam emails produce 2,112 metric tonnes of CO2 every day, or 770,880 over the course of one year from spam emails alone. In one day, that's equivalent to 5.2 million miles driven in a conventional gas car, or 1.8 billion miles over the course of a year.

Over three-quarters (77%) of people who have fallen victim to an AI phone scam have lost money to the scammers.

Number of spam emails is increasing (even as % decreases)

The total number of emails sent every day increases each year. Between 2017 and 2022 that daily total grew from 269 to 333.2 billion, which means that over 64 billion more emails were sent every day last year than 5 years previously!

Sources: Statista, Statista

How many spam emails are sent per day?

In 2022, over 162 billion spam emails were sent every day!

The percentage of total email traffic that is identified as spam, has consistently decreased (from 56.63% in 2017 to 48.63% in 2022). Security experts put this down to action against botnets (networks of hijacked computers that have historically been used to send spam).

Does this mean we're all receiving less spam emails?

No! Unfortunately, the increase in the total number of emails sent, makes up for the decrease in the proportion of emails that are identified as spam. So in fact, the number of spam emails has slightly increased over the same period.

We carried out a survey which found that the vast majority (96.8%) of people have received spam messages relating to scams through emails, text messages, phone calls, or other types of messages.

The most common channel people say they receive spam through is email, with almost half (49%) saying they receive spam via emails most often. This was followed by phone calls (26.5%), then text messages (14.7%), and messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger came lowest with 9.8%.

Over half of people have lost money to online or telephone scams

Of the 96.8% of respondents who had received messages or calls involving scams, 57.1% of this group said that they had lost money as a result of the scam. The most common amount people said they had lost in total because of these scams was $100-$249, however, 2.9% said they had lost over $1,000.

Some countries have worse spam issues than others, often due to weak or non-existent anti-spam laws that allow spam operations to be carried out more easily.

China has the most active spam issues

The latest figures show that China has by far the most live spam issues, totaling 18,720. This is followed by the U.S. with 6,712, and then Saudi Arabia with 834.

Source: Spam Haus

The U.S. sends the most spam emails per day

There are 8 billion spam emails sent in the United States every day, making this the country sending the most spam emails in total. The country with the second-highest number of spam emails per day is France with 7.3 billion, followed by Germany and Russia, both with 7.1 billion.

Source: Talos Intelligence

Greece sends the highest percentage of emails containing spam

While the U.S. sends the most spam emails in total, Greece sends the highest proportion compared to its total number of emails sent, with 95% containing spam, followed by China where 94.59% of emails contain spam. The U.S. comes 29th on this list with 82.47% of all emails sent here containing spam.

Sources: Talos Intelligence, Statista

The environmental impact of spam emails

When it comes to sending and receiving emails, the environmental impact is something that can be overlooked. Data from Carbon Literacy shows that a short email sent and received on a phone can produce 0.2g of carbon emissions, while a spam email picked up by filters can produce 0.03g of carbon emissions.

We used this information to determine just how much carbon was being produced by spam emails sent from the countries that send the most spam. The 8 billion spam emails sent from the U.S. each day will generate 240 metric tonnes of CO2 emissions. Over a year this would add up to a total of 87,600 metric tonnes of CO2.

For the top ten countries combined, spam emails produce 2,112 metric tonnes of CO2 every day, or 770,880 over the course of one year. In one day that's equivalent to 5.2 million miles driven in a conventional gas car, or 1.8 billion miles driven over a year.

Spam emails can contain a wealth of different topics from scammers posing as your bank to fake prizes telling you how to claim your 'jackpot'. We asked our survey respondents which themes they see most commonly in the spam emails they receive.

The topic most commonly seen in spam emails is prizes and giveaways, with 36.7% of people saying this is one of the top themes they see. This was closely followed by emails relating to job opportunities (36.3%), and banking-related scams came in third at 34.6%.

*Respondents were able to choose up to three options.

Robokiller estimates that Americans received a total of 78 billion automated spam texts throughout the first half of 2023, with most texts being received in January and May (14 billion each). In total, this is a $4 billion increase year-over-year compared to the same period in 2022.

Delivery services are the most common topic of spam texts

There were over 1.1 billion scam texts relating to delivery services sent in the U.S. in the first half of 2023, making this the most common topic used in these kinds of texts. This was followed by bank-related content with 365 million texts and travel-related content with 179 million texts.

Losses to text scams

Scammers using SMS scams stole an estimated $13 billion between January and June 2023. These scams typically impersonate legitimate businesses, like delivery companies or banks, and trick people into clicking links or sharing personal information.

The number of people in the U.S. who lost money due to scam calls more than tripled between 2014 and 2021.

People lose $502 to scam callers on average

The latest figures from TrueCaller show that a total of $29.8 billion was lost to scam callers by 59.4 million people in a one-year period, meaning victims lost $502 on average. The number of people losing money to scam calls has increased dramatically compared to 2014 when 18 million people lost a total of $8.6 billion.

Victims of scam calls

In total, men are victims of scams over the phone more often than women. Of all people who had been the victim of a phone scam in a period of 12 months, 59.4% were men, and 38.3% were women.

The most common victims of scam calls are men aged between 35 and 44, with 46% of people in this group falling victim to a phone call scam. This is followed by men aged 18-34 (40%), and women aged 18-34 (31%).

Source: TrueCaller

Some countries receive more spam calls than others

One study into telephone spam found that the scale of spam calls varies greatly from country to country. In this context, spam is defined as unwanted calls including fraud and nuisance calls.

Chile has the highest rate of spam calls, with 56.9% of phone calls nationwide being unwanted, and 8.9% (or 15.6 million) of all calls being classed as fraud. This is followed by Indonesia where 56.4% of all calls were spam, with 1.4% being fraud.

Other countries with a high spam call rate include Argentina (56%), Hong Kong (54%), and Brazil (46.4%). The U.S. ranks 16th on the list with 25.3% of all calls being classed as spam.

Source: Hiya

Spam calls per person

The number of spam calls each person receives also varies by country. People in Brazil currently receive the highest number with an average of 25 nuisance or fraud calls each month. Hong Kong comes in second with 20, followed by Chile with 18 spam calls per person per month on average.

The countries where people receive the fewest spam calls are the Netherlands, Hungary, New Zealand, and Ireland with only one spam call per person per month on average.

Source: Hiya

A 2022 report from IBM found that the click rate of an average targeted phishing attack was 17.8%. However, when phishing campaigns included phone calls (voice phishing), they were clicked by 53.2% of recipients, making them three times more effective.

How much money do spammers make?

One example from researchers at UC San Diego found that online spammers made around $7,000 per day on average, this amounts to approximately $2.5 million per year. However, this figure can vary widely depending on the scam operating, with some making very little and some making much more. (Source: UC San Diego)

While some phishing scams are targeted at individuals, many of these operations target businesses in an effort to obtain sensitive information or install malware on company computers. Since email is the most commonly used workplace communication tool, it makes sense that these phishing scams are predominantly in the form of emails.

Financial institutions, including banks, are the most common targets for business phishing attacks, with 27.7% of phishing emails or messages being sent to these companies. This is followed by SaaS and webmail companies at 17.7%, and social media companies at 10.4%.

With the use of AI tools on the rise, scammers are also making use of this technology to catch people online and over the phone.

AI voice cloning scams

A survey by McAfee found that 25% of adults had experienced a scam that used an AI voice. 10% of respondents said that they had personally been targeted, and 15% said it had happened to someone they knew. Of those who had fallen victim to an AI voice scam, 77% had lost money to the scammers.

Many of these scams include AI voice cloning, where the voice of someone you know is cloned and used to gain your trust in order to convince you to share your personal details or send money.

In our survey, 81.1% of people said they were aware that AI software is being used to imitate people's voices in telephone scams, and a similar number (80.8%) said they were concerned about it. However, 63.1% said they were confident they could tell the difference between an AI voice and a human voice.

An increase in spam since ChatGPT's release

The release of the AI chatbot, ChatGPT, in 2022 provided users with a handy tool that could answer questions, generate content, write emails, and carry out a whole host of other tasks. But the launch of ChatGPT also gave scammers a way to refine their attacks and increase their frequency.

Research carried out by Darktrace found a 135% increase in 'novel social engineering' attacks in early 2023 following the widespread rollout of ChatGPT. These attacks are designed to create a sense of urgency, fear, or curiosity which persuades victims to take action.

Almost three-quarters (73%) of people said that they were concerned that hackers could use generative AI tools like ChatGPT to create spam emails that were almost impossible to distinguish from genuine emails. A Tooltester study found that 63.5% of people can't identify content made purely by the ChatGPT 4.0 model.

Using AI to protect people from spam

Email providers and cybersecurity companies often use AI to detect online spam and filter it into junk folders or prevent it from accessing a victim's computer. In fact, Google says its AI-powered spam filtering technology blocks more than 99.9% of spam, phishing, and malware from reaching users' Gmail inboxes. Google also states that their AI-enhanced filters block almost 10 million spam emails every minute.

During our survey, we also asked people their opinions on different topics relating to online spam, and how it has affected them.

Most people (86.5%) said they thought the number of scam messages and emails they receive had increased in the past year. Concerningly, over two-thirds (68.8%) said their mental health had been impacted by an online scam, with 41% of people saying it had impacted their mental health considerably and 27.8% saying it had been affected a little.

Around four in five (79.6%) people said that they knew someone else who had been the victim of online scams or fraud, with 28.8% saying they knew of more than one person who had been affected.

Catching spam

The overwhelming majority of people (95.9%) think that they're able to spot spam or fraudulent messages, with 56.6% saying they can pick them out easily. However, 39.3% said they can generally spot them but not always. Almost three-quarters (73.3%) also think that spam filters do a good job of blocking spam emails from entering inboxes.

We carried out a survey of 1,044 people in the U.S. between 02/10/23 and 09/10/23 to ask about their experiences with online spam and scam-related communications.

The breakdown of the survey respondents was as follows:

Male: 54.2%

Female: 44.9%

Non-binary: 0.4%

Preferred not to say: 0.5%

18-24: 4.5%

25-34: 38.1%

35-44: 38.3%

45-54: 10.9%

55-64: 5.4%

Over 65: 2.7%

Learn more about us

Our Methodology

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Spam Statistics 2024: Survey on Junk Email, AI Scams & Phishing

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Online spam is on the rise, and we've put together some of the most intriguing spam statistics for 2023 including data on phone scams, phishing, and junk texts.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
SpamAssassin: A practical guide to integration and configuration

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As a busy administrator, you know Spam is a major distraction in todays network. The effects range from inappropriate content arriving in the mailboxes up to contact email addresses placed on a website being deluged with unsolicited mail, causing valid enquiries and sales leads to be lost and wasting employee time.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Ash and steam clouds from Redoubt Volcano as viewed to the west from the Kenai Peninsula. (April 21, 1990)
USGS photo by R.J. Clucas, public domain.

Introduction

Volcanic eruptions can range from the emission of gases to quiet eruptions of lava flows that can be safely observed to powerful eruptions that can blow apart mountains and devastate many square miles like what occurred during the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.

Although the St. Helens eruption is the largest to have taken place in the United States in more than 100 years, it is not even close to being the largest historic eruption in North America. The 1912 eruption of Novarupta in Katmai NP and Preserve was about 30 times larger than St. Helens based on the volume of magma emitted.

Volume of Erupted Magma

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Volcanic Explosivity Index - Volcanoes, Craters & Lava Flows (U.S. National Park Service)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Volcanic eruptions can range from the emission of gases to quiet eruptions of lava flows that can be safely observed to powerful eruptions that can blow apart mountains and devastate many square miles like what occurred during the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. Although the St.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
THE VOLCANO: Rescue from Whakaari | Official Trailer | Netflix

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Landslide sweeps Norway homes into the sea

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Droplet size: how do we measure the diameter of a water droplet?

Diameter and Weight

A droplet size is measured in microns (μm) A micron is 1/1000 of a millimeter or about 1/25,000 of an inch.

50 microns is about the size of a human hair, while 2 microns is about the size of a bacteria. As you can imagine, there is a huge difference between the feeling of a 50 micron droplet and a 2 micron droplet.

Examples of droplet size in different industries

For a cleaning or cooling application, a larger droplet size between 200 - 1,200 μm would be advantageous as you need a lot of water pressure.

However, for cooling of a barn with cows, for instance, a much smaller droplet size between 35 - 60 μm would be recommended. Otherwise the cows would get soaked instead of just cooled.

If we go one step further, to an SMT, electronics, or textile production, it would be considered a risk to add water at all. In this case, a droplet size below 10μm would be recommended. These droplets are so small that they bounce back before reaching any surface.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Droplet size: what to understand about the measuring methods

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How do we measure the droplets size? How important is it? There are several measuring methods that allow us to measure the diameter of a water droplet.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Harry K. asks: Why are raindrops always so small. Would it be possible to have a single raindrop that contains gallons of water?

At only about half as wide in diameter as a U.S. penny, the largest raindrops ever recorded, between 8.8 mm and 1 cm, were observed by scientists in the clouds above Brazil (1995) and the Marshall Islands (1999). It is unknown, however, if these bad boys ever reached the ground at that size. So why can't raindrops grow to arbitrarily large sizes?

To begin with, let's talk a little about how raindrops actually form. Raindrops are more than just water; the vapor in a cloud has to have something to condense around, without which there would be no rain. Called condensation nuclei, little particles in the air, from dust, smoke or even salt, sit at the center of the tiny droplets that begin to form in a cloud.

These tiny droplets, usually between 0.001 and 0.005 mm in diameter, at first form a nearly spherical shape thanks to the relatively strong cohesive forces between the water molecules. As the water drop is buffeted around in the air, it collides with other drops, and these small drops coalesce into larger and larger droplets.

Ultimately the water drop will become large enough to fall to earth. When this happens, the surface tension of the water that keeps the drop more or less spherical is partially overcome by the airflow pressure on its lower surface as it falls. This causes the bottom of the drop to flatten out, while the top retains its rounded shape.

Thus, contrary to the popular perception of a teardrop shaped raindrop, thanks to the various pressures the water drop is subjected to as it falls to the ground, the raindrop actually tends to look sort of like a kidney bean or the top of a hamburger bun. For very large droplets, it can even start to look something like a jellyfish bell, with this usually happening when a raindrop reaches around 4 mm across. When the droplets get larger than this (at around 5 mm), the air pressure will ultimately overcome the surface tension of the water completely and the raindrop will split apart.

As the drop continues to fall, it can continue to grow or shrink as it bumps into and absorbs or is broken apart by other droplets. Thanks to this process, the average raindrop that actually makes it to your head is only around 1 to 2 mm across.

That said, scientists began recording significantly larger drops in the 1980s while studying clouds. For instance, in 1986, cloud physicists, using the staple of all awesome science- lasers- recorded raindrops as large as 8 mm in a tropical storm over Hawaii, which was shocking since, at the time, " there had been a kind of consensus that raindrops would never get bigger than about 2.5 mm."

Even factoring in that these large drops were buffeting about in the clouds instead of falling to earth, the scientists were surprised to find that they could last long enough to grow that big without being broken apart; rather, during that early research in Hawaii, they found that the average lifespan of a 5 mm drop was around a remarkable 20 minutes.

For the aforementioned 8.8 mm and 1 cm record-holding raindrops found in the clouds over Brazil, scientists opined that they were the product of relatively large ash particles from fires burning in one of Brazil's rainforests- the larger the condensation nuclei, the larger the raindrop can potentially be, at least to a point.

As for the similarly sized raindrops observed in 1999 on a relatively clear day in the Marshall Islands, they hypothesized that these droplets formed around salt nuclei and that there must have been an unusually high content of liquid water in a narrow area of clouds which caused the droplets to collide more frequently, but without breaking, forming these mega-drops.

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy our new popular podcast, The BrainFood Show ( iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, Feed), as well as:

Bonus Facts:

Cherrapunji, India holds two of the top rainfall records. On June 15-16, 1995, it endured 98.15 inches of rain, the most in any 48-hour period. And, from August 1860-July 1861, it received the most rain in any one year: 86 feet, 10 inches! All of this rain comes from the monsoons that visit south Asia each year. As moist air rises from the Indian Ocean up across Bangladesh and India, it eventually collides with the Himalayas and ultimately drops it in torrential rainfall.

Unionville, Maryland holds the record for the most rain in one minute - at 1.22 inches on July 4, 1956.

The record for most rain in 24 hours is held by Foc-Foc, La Réunion, which received 71.8 inches on January 7-8, 1966.

While people often exaggerate tiny hailstones as "golf-ball size" when describing them to others, in June of 2003 Aurora, Nebraska experienced one hail of a hailstorm. The National Climate Extremes Committee documented the hail size that fell in that storm, with many being about the size of a soft ball. One particular hailstone found from that storm is the largest ever (by size) well documented- a full seven inches in diameter, or just a little smaller than a standard soccer ball. As for the largest ever hailstone by weight, the record stone fell in Gopalganj, Bangladesh, on April 14, 1986 and weighed 2.25 pounds or 1.02 kg.

Expand for References

Share the Knowledge!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Harry K. asks: Why are raindrops always so small. Would it be possible to have a single raindrop that contains gallons of water? At only about half as wide in diameter as a U.S. penny, the largest raindrops ever recorded, between 8.8 mm and 1 cm, were observed by scientists in the clouds above Brazil (1995) and the Marshall Islands [...]

# data[].attributes.headline
Russian spacecraft burning up on re-entry

# data[].attributes.subject
Russian spacecraft burning up on re-entry

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Watch a Russian spacecraft burn up in Earth's atmosphere from space station

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Spacecraft Cemetery: Meet NASA’s Watery Tomb For Decommissioned Spacecrafts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Meet the world’s only spacecraft cemetery: Point Nemo, a unique and remote underwater graveyard for retired satellites and space debris.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We tend to think of satellites as huge spacecraft that tower over the engineers who build them. Consider Envisat, SOHO and GOCE – all ESA satellites similar in size to a small bus. But over the last 25 years, miniature satellites called CubeSats have been shaking up the space industry, making accessing space easier and cheaper for those who could previously only dream of it.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Vegetarianism is the act of abstaining from the consumption of eating meat and meat by-products. Below is a list of countries along with the number of people who are estimated to be vegetarians. Although some countries have considerably higher estimated reports of vegetarians than others, vegetarians can be found throughout the world.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Yes, this is America. The borders are all new, but the areas are correct; this is a map of land use in the contiguous United States, each category corralled into a homogenous rectangle. As you can see, humans have a minority stake in the nation. The U.S. is Cow Country.

Of course, this is not what America really looks like. The 1.9 billion acres in the coterminous states are a coast-to-coast jumble of residential areas, industrial zones, farmlands and more. This map gives all that the Ursus Wehrli treatment.

Mr Wehrli is a Swiss artist with an obsessive-compulsive bent. He produces before-and-after images of, among other things: alphabet soup, alphabetized; a parking lot full of cars, rearranged according to color; or René Magritte's famous It's raining men painting (1), with the bowler-hatted gentlemen lined up in three size categories.

The results are strangely satisfying 'tidied-up' images, and so is this map, regimenting statistical data into coherent cartographic cohorts. It doesn't even look too much out of order, given that most U.S. states are at least partially rectangular in shape anyway. The result: an illuminating overview of land management in the Lower 48.

The map is based on the six major land use (MLU) categories as defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but also shows various subdivisions.

Pasture/range

654 million acres (about 35% of the total)

Judging by land use, the U.S. is dominated by cattle. More than one-third of the area of the contiguous states is given up to pasture-more than any other land use type. Most of it is for cows, with much smaller areas nibbled by horses, and sheep/goats/other.

About a quarter of pastureland is federally administered, mainly in the western states.

Adding up pasture and cropland used to produce feed (124.7 million acres), cattle dominate 41% of all land in the contiguous U.S.

Forest

These are forested areas outside of parks and reserves. About a quarter of the contiguous states are covered in these unprotected wooded areas.

About 11 million acres of timber are harvested every year, but thanks to regrowth, U.S. timber stock grew by about 1% per annum from 2007 to 2012.

The largest private owner of timberlands in the U.S. is a company called Weyerhaeuser. It owns 12.4 million acres or 2.3% of all available timber. Put differently: that's an area almost the size of West Virginia (or, on this map, a private fiefdom spanning the Arizona-New Mexico border).

Cropland

More of it is used for livestock feed (127 million acres) than for human consumption (77 million acres).

Most of the land planted with food we eat is covered by wheat, followed by soybeans, peanuts and oilseeds.

More land is dedicated to sugarcane and sugarbeets and maple syrup than to vegetables.

More than a third of the entire corn crop, or around 38 million acres, is dedicated to ethanol, for bio-diesel.

Around 21.5 million acres are planted with wheat for export, 63 million acres are used for growing other grain and feed exports.

Special use

Most of this is nature reserves, either state or national parks (15 and 29 million acres, respectively), but most of all federal wilderness areas (64 million acres).

Military areas cover around 25 million acres. That's about the size of Ohio.

Perhaps surprisingly, rural highways cover no less than 21 million acres. Farmsteads add up to 8 million acres, almost enough to cover New Hampshire.

Airports and railroads cover 3 million acres each, equal to the area of Connecticut (each) or Vermont (together).

Miscellaneous

Swamps, marshes, deserts, non-harvestable forests and generally any barren land of low economic value. Most of this category (about 50 million acres) is made up of rural residential lands.

Urban

About four in five Americans live in urban areas, which is about the size of the Northeast. Sounds like a good balance with nature. But urban areas have quadrupled in size since 1945, and are adding about a million acres-that's four of the squares on this map-each year.

For reference, the map indicates the approximate outlines of state borders and, in thinner white lines, a grid of squares with an area of 250,000 acres each.

For instance, that's the area covered by Christmas trees (conveniently corralled into one location on the coast of Georgia for this map).

Double that area is covered by tobacco plants (half a million acres), and double again by flowers (a million acres), both growing on the shores of North Carolina.

Double again: America's One Giant Golf Course, taking up 2 million acres on South Carolina's central coast.

One of the fastest-growing categories: land owned by the 100 largest private landowners. Was 28 million acres in 2008, is about 40 million acres now-slightly larger than the entire state of Florida.
Many thanks to all who sent in this map, found here on Strange Maps #928 Got a strange map? Let me know at [email protected] . Bloomberg.
(1) Actual name: Golconda. Painted in 1953. Now at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas. No motion is implied, so it's deliberately unclear whether they're rising, falling or hanging still in mid-air.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The U.S. is Cow Country, and other lessons from this land use map

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
America's corn syrup fields are big enough to cover all its airports and railroads, and other surprising lessons from a 'tidied-up' map of America's land use zones

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Here you can see the top 10 charities based on information contained in the annual return. The top 10 charities can be displayed for different categories by selecting from the drop-down menu. Lists are ordered with charities having the highest figures shown first. This information is updated daily.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Income Tax rates and Personal Allowances

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Personal Allowance, Income Tax rates, bands and thresholds.

# data[].attributes.headline
Core Maths Conference London Friday 18th June

# data[].attributes.subject
Core Maths Conference London Friday 18th June

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Supporting Students Transition to level 3 Maths

# data[].attributes.body
Games, Mastery, AI, Social Justice and more!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Summary

Our Core Maths Summer Festival is an extensive series of online interactive workshops. Each session will provide resources and activities which you can take straight to the classroom.

You can download the Core Maths Summer Festival 2023 Programme to see a summary of all 8 sessions.

Please note that the main session content will be delivered in the first hour and a half of each session and the remaining time will be dedicated to questions and support.

Who will benefit from attending?

These sessions are designed to appeal to all teachers that wish to bring their contextualised maths lessons to life. No prior experience or knowledge of L3 Core Maths is required.

Choose a session

Listed here are the upcoming dates and times sessions from this festival will run.

There are currently no instances of this event available.

To register your interest in any of our Core Maths courses, please register your interest and we will contact you when a suitable course is open for applications.

Get notified

Interested in this course? Be the first to know where and when it's running by joining our Stay Informed mailing list.

Skip to content

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Our Core Maths Summer Festival is an extensive series of online interactive workshops. Each session will provide resources and activities which you can take straight to the classroom. You can download the Core Maths Summer Festival 2023 Programme to see a summary of all 8 sessions.

# data[].attributes.headline
Preparing to teach Core Maths online short course

# data[].attributes.subject
Preparing to teach Core Maths online short course

# data[].attributes.body
Short course for those that will be teaching Core Maths for the first time in September 24

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Support and strategies for offering Core Maths