What Singapore has banned since 1992 is the import and sale of chewing gum, not the act of chewing it. The government wanted to stop gum being stuck on pavements, in lifts and even on metro door sensors, where it could stop the doors from closing. Since 2004, medical and dental gums, such as nicotine gum, have been sold in pharmacies. Dropping your gum on the street, however, can still get you a littering fine.
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.