Beech Tree News Network

The world in which we live is pretty amazing. Not being a scientist, the bits of information below interested me – for different reasons.
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The Old Farmer’s Almanac began publication in 1792 and has been continuously published for the entire 222 years, making it North America’s oldest continuously published periodical. It is distributed each year in the United States and Canada. The periodical includes long-range weather predictions, claiming an 80% accuracy.
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Scientists said 2012 solar blasts that could have damaged electrical grids and disabled space satellites narrowly missed Earth. The bursts would have wreaked havoc on the Earth's magnetic field, matching the severity of the 1859 Carrington event – the largest solar magnetic storm ever reported on the planet. That blast knocked out the telegraph system across the United States. A 2013 study estimated that a solar storm like the Carrington Event could cost the global economy $2.6 trillion (http://news.msn.com/science-technology/scientists-say-destructive-solar-...).
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George Ball (W. Atlee Burpee & Co.) has predicted that American gardeners will be using smaller spaces. He expects herbs will be used more in home cooking and said that home gardening companies are working to develop vegetable plants that are smaller but yield more (Park City Daily News, page 11C, January 5, 2014).
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“Why are nearly 70 percent of Americans and almost 1.5 billion people worldwide…overweight? The answer is simple. Addiction. We are a country–no, make that a world–of food addicts…” (Mark Hyman, The Blood Sugar Solution: 10-Day Detox Diet, p.17, 2014).
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Average age of population for 2010 is listed on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_median_age). Some countries listed include: Japan 44.6 years of age, Canada 40.7, Australia 37.5, United States 36.9, China 35.2, Brazil 30.5, Israel 29.3, Vietnam 27.4, Mexico 26.7, and South Africa 24.7. The average age of the world population is 28.4 years (2009 est.; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_world).
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A country’s wealth is measured by its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Based on an estimate of GDP, the top ten richest countries in 2014 are (http://megatopten.com/facts/top-10-most-richest-countries-in-2014/):
1.    Luxembourg
2.    Qatar
3.    Norway
4.    Switzerland
5.    Australia
6.    Denmark
7.    Sweden
8.    United States
9.    Singapore
10.    Canada
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The world is an amazing place, and as the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. I like Martin Luther’s (1483-1546) attitude when he said: “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”