Cash machines spread across the United States from the 1970s, yet the number of bank tellers didn't fall for decades. Economist James Bessen explains the paradox: between 1988 and 2004, the number of tellers per urban branch fell from about 20 to 13, but branches became cheaper to run and their number rose by 43%. Tellers shifted towards advising customers. Only the rise of online banking brought a clear decline.
That's the estimate from a WHO-led study published in The Lancet in 2024, covering the half-century since the Expanded Programme on Immunization was launched in 1974. It works out to about six lives saved every minute, mostly infants. The measles vaccine alone accounts for around 60% of those lives.
According to the World Gold Council, about 216,000 tonnes of gold have been mined in all of human history. Because gold is so dense (19.3 tonnes per cubic metre), it would fit in a cube about 22 metres on each side, roughly the height of a seven-storey building. Strikingly, about two-thirds of it has been mined since 1950.