NumbersDontLie

Numbers Dont Lie (Vaclav Smil)

Very good. As expected.
Rigid raking based on minuscule differences misleads rather than informs. Rounding and approximation is superior to unwarranted and unnecessary precision.

The age of first menstruation has been decreasing from about 17 years in preindustrial societies to less than 13 years in today's Western world
The easiest way to improve a child's chance of growing taller is for them to drink more milk.
Advantage of bipedalism: A quadruped can only take a single breath per locomotive cycle, its chest must absorb the impact on the front limbs. We can choose other breathing patterns that lets us use energy more efficiently.
Sweating is our extraordinary ability to regulate our body temperature. A horse can loose about 100 g of water per square meter of skin. a camel 250g/m², whereas a human can easily shed 500 g/m².

Indian population will surpass China no later than 2025.
The normal male/female ratio is 1.06. In India it is 1.12 and 1.15 in China.
Facebook has a market cap nearly three times that of Toyota.
Keeping large empires for extended periods has become more difficult.
Diesels are 20% more efficient than gas engines. They use higher energy density fuel. The can burn lower quality, cheaper fuel. Diesel powers virtually all container ships and all carriers of bulk commodities. They also power nearly all freight trains. Diesel engines are here to stay, there are no viable substitutes on the horizon.
Gas turbines are now by far the most affordable choice for generating electricity.
Nuclear electricity, a "successful failure"
To have an electric ship with batteries and motors weighing no more than the fuel and diesel engine would require a x10 gain in battery density. In the past 70 years the best performance gains have been x4.
Steam more than halved the transatlantic travel time.
Globally at least 1/3 of all harvested food is wasted.
In the US and Europe, building account for 40% of total primary energy consumption, Heating and air conditioning are half of this. The single best thing we could for the energy budget is to improve insulation. The most rewarding place to do that is in the windows, where the energy loss is highest.
Between 1800 and 2000 the population increased by factor of 6 whereas the carbon transfer from fossil fuels to the atmosphere increased by a factor of 650.