Did you happen to see the mentalfloss.com article posted May 31 on cnn.com about 10 interesting numbers in the U.S.? Among the numbers listed were 2.3 (milligrams of B1, the amount recommended during World War II for very active men after the Selective Service discovered that about one in seven armed forces candidates suffered from "disabilities directly or indirectly connected with nutrition"); $435 (the absurdly priced hammer that came to symbolize wasteful Pentagon spending in the 1980s); and 100-proof (the measurement that gets you drunk—interesting story how this came about).

Perhaps more interesting to those in manufacturing were the statistics released the same day by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) . The Monday Economic Report featured a chart showing the manufacturing sectors with the largest percentage of employment growth from December 2009 to April 2011. (more...)