Modern Marvels

No country consumes more bottled water per person than Italy. Each Italian drinks an average of 55 gallons per year – nearly twice that of each American. Half of all the paper produced in the United States is used to wrap and decorate consumer products. Paper compromises about 41% of our trash. Packaging and transporting one Chinook helicopter about a C-5 cargo jet costs more than $500,000.

The Sealed Air Corporation's first major client was IBM which used bubble wrap to ship its IBM 1401 one of the world's first mass produced business computers.

For a product to be labeled "Made in the USA" the Federal Trace Commission requires that at least 70 % of the parts and labor come from the United States.

The Homestake Gold Mine in South Dakota is currently home to a nuclear research lab 4800 feet below the surface. But a proposed "Deep Underground Science and Engineering Lab" would extend the site to more than a mile and a half below the surface.

In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt hunted wolves in Oklahoma with Jack Abernathy, a local legend renowned for catching wolves with his bare hands. After seeing Abernathy in action Roosevelt wanted to nab one himself, but the Secret Service talked him out of it.

The Iditarod commemorates the heroics of a Siberian Husky named Balto. In 1925 during an outbreak of diphtheria in Alaska, Balto led his sled team on the final leg of a run to bring medicine from Anchorage to Nome.

In 2009, American drug dogs sniffed out 1,000 pounds of heroin, 26,000 pounds of cocaine, 670,000 pounds of marijuana, three million pills and $34 million in undeclared cash.

A German Shepherd named Trakr found the last human survivor of the 9/11 terrorist attack under 30 feet of the Twin Towers rubble. Trakr died in 2009 but scientists successfully produced five cloned puppies.

A single iPhone has more processing power than the North American Air Defense Command in 1965.

The Wii video game console has become a staple in retirement communities where over 100 senior Wii bowling leagues have been established in the United States.

78% of American households – about 91 million – had one or more credit cards at the end of 2008

The world's largest solar power plant is being built in the desert outside of Los Angeles. It's expected to generate enough electricity to supply 800,000 homes.

In 2007, Jeff Sitar his eighth consecutive world safecracking title by cracking two safes in 1hour 34 minutes and 10 seconds. He hasn't competed since.

The FBI's fingerprint database is the largest in the world. It receives 34,000 new fingerprint cards a day.

The Great Wall of China is a series of walls more than twice the length of the United States-Mexican border.

In the early 1980s the Air and Marine Operations Center used a number of radars atop all terrain vehicles to monitor sections of the U.S. border. The range of each was less than 100 miles.

The most expensive cars ever crash tested by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety are the Mercedes E500 and the Lexus LS, both priced around $60,000.

Since children could be trapped inside refrigerators if their doors reach the breaking point, Underwriters Laboratories opens and closes test models 300,000 times.

In 1989 engineers determined the breaking point of the Tower of Pisa. It would collapse when its tilt reaches 5.4 degrees – but inexplicably it was already leaning 5.5 degrees. A $25 million project set it a little straighter.

The human eardrum can register a rock concert at 110 decibels but at 160 decibels it reaches its breaking point, perforating instantly.

At takeoff, the four 14,000 pound A380 engines create a thrust equal to the power of over 3500 family car engines.