march-2010

46 million
mouths
McDonald’s is
probably the most
famous fast food ood
restaurant in the world. It
serves more than han han46million 46 million
people per day ay – more than
the entire population pulation of Spain
- according to o Super Size Me
fi lmmaker Morgan rgan Spurlock.
It also has over er 30,000
restaurants in more than 100
countries on six continents.
1 day vs 1 year
Bamboo is the fastest growing plant on earth. In ideal conditions,
it can grow up to 60 centimetres per day. The English oak, by comparison,
needs about a year year to grow the same amount.
Fast facts & figures
320 kph in
a single dive
Although the cheetah is
famed for being the
fastest land animal (with (wit running speeds of up to
112 kph), kph), in the skies th the peregrine falcon is the
speed speed champion, swooping swo downwards at up to
320 kph when diving
for prey.
1OVER PETAFLOP
The Jaguar Cray
supercomputer is the
fastest ever built, with a
speed of 1.76 petafl ops.
One petafl op amounts to
1,000,000,000,000,000
(that’s one thousand
million million) calculations
per second. A new IBM
supercomputer due in
2011 will will be be capable capable of of 20
petafl petafl ops. In eight hours it
will be able to process as
much as the average laptop
could in 20,000 years.