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When Gabriel Fahrenheit invented the first mercury thermometer, he called "zero degrees" the lowest temperature he was able to attain with a mixture of ice and salt. For the upper point of his scale, he used 96°, which he measured as normal human body temperature (we know it to be 98.6° today because of more accurate thermometers).
There are approximately 3 million unintended pregnancies in the United States each year.
The highest suicide rate in the United States is among people ages 65 years and older. Almost 15% of people in this age group commit suicide every year.
Asthma cases in Americans are about 75% higher today than they were in 1980.
Cancer has been around as long as humankind, but only in the second half of the twentieth century did the number of cancer cases explode.