You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
100,000 teenagers
Number of Californians under the age of 18 who have pre-registered to vote as part of an effort that allows 16- and 17- year olds to sign up to have their registration kick in automatically when they turn 18. While the program has been in effect since late 2016, 10 percent of those pre-registrations have taken place in the past several weeks, according to the California Secretary of State — many in response to the nationwide protests over gun violence. [The Los Angeles Times]
36.7 percent
The gender pay gap at three of the United Kingdom’s auction houses is enormous. Based on the median hourly earnings of both part-time and full-time employees, women at Sotheby’s made 22.2 percent less than men, women at Christie’s made 25 percent less than men, and women at Bonhams made 36.7 percent less. [The Art Newspaper]
68 percent
Percentage of Americans over the age of 65 who take vitamins, according to a 2013 Gallup survey, and 29 percent of the group take four or more supplements. The issue? Clinical trials haven’t found a lot of clear evidence that vitamins meaningfully contribute towards broad health goals, and many supplements — like vitamin E — have actually been linked to higher risk of heart failure, prostate cancer and death. [The New York Times]
$150 per half-hour
That’s how much it costs to hang out with Vivien, a two-toed sloth at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh. By comparison, a half hour with Willy, a Southern three-banded armadillo, costs $40 per half hour. The use of these animal ambassadors — which let people directly interact with a diverse set of creatures — has been good for zoos, allowing attendees to forge a personal connection with at-risk animals and the zoo to bring in some much-needed revenue. [The Wall Street Journal]
$50 million
“A Quiet Place,” the silent horror film starring Emily Blunt and John Krasinski, smashed expectations this weekend, bumping “Ready Player One” from the No. 1 spot at the domestic box office. The film cost $17 million to make, was projected to earn as much as $34 million, but actually made $50 million. [Bloomberg]
Up to $10 billion
The reported value over 10 years of a U.S. Department of Defense contract for cloud computing services that will be awarded in September. If Amazon Web Services wins the contract, that $1 billion per year wouldn’t represent a huge chunk of revenue for the cloud computing giant, but it could lead to more government contracts. Still, other cloud computing providers — Microsoft, Oracle and IBM — also have government experience and are potentially in the running. [CNBC]
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