Aug. 27th mind blowing random thought of the day: In 1848, the Whig Party nominated Louisiana General Zachary Taylor to be their candidate for president without either his knowledge nor his presence at the political convention. They sent him notification through the mail, but did not pay for postage. Taylor was therefore required to pay the fee himself in order to read the letter, but he refused to do so and did not discover that he was running for president until several weeks later, leaving little time for campaigning. However, due to his popular military record in both the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War of 1846, he easily won the election to become the 12th President of the United States.
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Not sure. This may have been a study specific to the USA.
When I was rummaging around, I found that it’s hard to come across stats beyond attacks occurring specifically in national, state, and provincial parks in North America, and those all come up with numbers quite consistent with what you gave.
But now I know about sloth bears. I’m glad you made me curious 
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Aug. 28th mind blowing random thought of the day: It is illegal in North Dakota for one to fall asleep with his or her shoes on.
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Two of my worst things in one package - spiders and cats. Gee, thanks. 
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Aug. 29th mind blowing random thought of the day: From 1902 to 1907, a group of 12 scientists regularly ate common potentially dangerous food additives that had been previously untested in order to document their reactions. Known as “the Poison Squad,” their work later led to the formation of the FDA.
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Aug. 30th mind blowing random thought of the day: Carrots contain more natural sugar than any other vegetable in the world besides sugar beets, and were thus used as a sweetener during Medieval times when other sources were scarce and expensive, leading to the creation of the carrot cake.
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Aug. 31st mind blowing random thought of the day: The element bismuth has a half life of over a billion times the estimated age of the universe.
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Again, how do they know? How? It’s just a group of old men in beards and lab coats standing around going " yes, yes, yes, uhm, yes, isn’t it"
???
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It’s a measurement of fractions, I suppose. Date the bismuth and discover how much of a half life has expired, voila.
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Yeah, theres a fair amount of chemistry, and other fields of study that go into it.
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Sept. 1st mind blowing random thought of the day: The first British spy to be known as “007” was Dr. John Dee in 1560 under Queen Elizabeth I.
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@DungeonMaster, I’ll back up Geoff on the other half of that equation: Presuming to know the age of the universe.
We computed Hubble time in general relativity class and it can be done on the back of an envelope. It’s based on some pretty simple assumptions including approximating everything as homogenous and uniform. This in spite of now knowing the cool universe has some structure.
That said, on that scale not sure how else one would even come close to making an estimate otherwise!
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This is where I find it hard to grasp anything physicsy. Especially like the age of the universe. it’s all based on assumptions that are based on our little knowledge and perception.
To my mind we are such a young species, yet we think we know so much.
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I don’t think we know that much. Nor do most scientists I know.
Only a best guess based on what we know today. Just enough to get us into trouble.
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Yeah, definitely. We’ll be shouting our mouths off out there and attract unwanted attention.
Or do I just read too much Sci-Fi!? 
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If we do it’ll make a great book. 
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