Not an Arab World [035]

Superhighway to the Future [216]

A 24-lane superhighway packed bumper to bumper would have to circle the globe 1.8 times to accommodate the world’s 440 million cars in 2000. By the year 2030, however, the superhighway to the future would have to circle the globe 4.25 times to accommodate the projected1020 million cars at that date. A hypothethical parking lot to accommodate this car population would cover all of Belgium.

US Patent Holders [284]

This globe represents half of all patents in the US - those registered to
foreign holders. Countries with more than 1000 patents registered in
the US are indicated by name, with the point size of the representative
text scaled according to the square root of the total number of US
patents held. Japan accounts for roughly one third of foreign-held US
patents, followed by Germany, the UK, and France. Were the number
of domestically held US patents to be indicated according to this logic,
the entire surface of the globe would be covered. As of 2007 over half of all patents registered in the US are foreign owned.