Factoids For Gaining Perspective

Sorry for going off-track, the following factoids are not specifically about organizations or industries, they’re just a bunch of numbers and data useful for gaining perspective, resetting referencepoints & and reframing issues. They are all approximations culled from different sources, if you want certainty, please research them a little more deeply.

Factoids for gaining perspective:How old is the universe?
13.7 +/- 0.2 billion years (big bang theory)

How old is Earth?
4.55 billion years (+/- 1%, used to be 4 billion when I was in college, I must be old)

How old is life onEarth?
Earliest fossils are from around 3.5 billion years ago

How old is humanity?
Proto-humans, 5 million years ago
Homo habilis (first hominid), 2 million years ago
H. sapiens (as we aretoday) 500,000 to 200,000 years ago
(dates vary a bit by source)

How old is agriculture?
It started and expanded between 8,000 and 3,500 B.C. (when first civilizations arose)

How old iswriting?
6,000 B.C.

How many cells does a human body have?
Estimates from 10 trillion to 100 trillion (used to be only one 1 trillion a decade ago, we must be much bigger now, or our cells muchsmaller)

How many species are there on Earth?
Less than 2 million documented (named), between 10 and 100 million left to discover

How many genes does the human genome have?
Approximately 30,000What percentage of our DNA do we share with our closest relative (the chimpanzee)?
98.6 (we are basically very slightly modified chimpanzees : )

Population (human) of the world
6.2 billion(2002), rate of growth has actually started declining, mainly due to reductions in fertility (we are at 2.6 children per female and have to get to 2.1 to stop population growth, it is predicted we’ll reach2.1 before 2050, when we’ll be about 9 billion humans on Earth). Good source at http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/wp02.html

Population of the US
294,145,812 estimated @12:04 am EDT Aug 31, 2004...