A glance at the week that was
Chip and pen
Ensuring children go to school has traditionally required nothing more complicated than roll-calls, but a city in Brazil is going for a higher-tech approach in the fight against truancy: locator chips in uniforms. Vitória da Conquista, a city of 300,000 people in the eastern Bahia state, issued T-shirts embedded with microchips to 20,000 students earlier this week in an attempt to discourage truancy. The chips log when the students enter school, and a central computer texts parents if their child misses class. The city plans to issue such T-shirts to all 43,000 public school students by next year.
The numbers
$155m - Opening-weekend US box-office take for The Hunger Games, the third- biggest in history.
1,728 - Number of times the Daily Mail asked a private investigator to obtain private information about public figures from 2000 to 2003.
41% - Proportion of the billions of Earth- like planets in our galaxy that orbit in habitable zones around their suns.
2 - Number of times Martin McDermott has escaped from Loughan House low-security prison.
1,556% - One-day growth in sales of the Etch a Sketch on Amazon after a Mitt Romney aide compared the presidential candidate to the venerable drawing toy (above).
6 - Number of people who restrained pilot Clayton Osbon after he began warning of a bomb aboard his New York-Las Vegas JetBlue flight.
We now know
Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, has funded an expedition to retrieve the engines that powered the Apollo 11 space flight (left) from the bottom of the Atlantic.
General Electric light bulbs can last a century: a time capsule left at a GE facility in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1912 included five bulbs; three still functioned this week.
Female genital mutilation has been banned in Ireland.
Give me a crash course in . . . the census results
What did we learn this week?The preliminary results of the 2011 census were published, showing a significant population increase since the last census, in 2006, among other things.
I thought everyone was trying to leave this place. So why is the population higher than it has been in 150 years?Most of the increase recorded over the past five years is down to a very high natural increase; that is, the number of births minus the number of deaths. On average, more than 70,000 children were born in each of the five years leading up to last April's census. Net immigration, at least until 2010, has also helped population growth, while the numbers leaving the country have been lower than many expected.
And Laois has the fastest-growing population in the country. What's so great about the county?Ireland's population growth – up 8 per cent since the last census, in 2002 – was greatest in commuter-belt areas outside the capital. Motorways, cheaper housing and proximity to the capital all helped to spur growth. Numbers were highest in Laois (up 20 per cent) but were also high in Co Cavan, Co Meath and Fingal, in north Co Dublin.
There are more men than women. So why do men get all the luck?Traditionally, it has been the other way around. This week's census shows there are almost 44,000 more females than males in the State, resulting in a ratio of 981 males for every 1,000 women. Changing patterns of migration are likely to be part of the reason. For example, the number of non-Irish women increased by 39 per cent between 2006 and 2011. Polish women accounted for nearly half of this. The pattern isn't uniform, however. Dublin has the lowest ratio of males to females; the midlands region was the only area to show more males than females.
The number of Catholics is up. There's a surprise. I thought the church was in serious troubleIreland remains a predominantly Catholic country, despite the large increases in other religions seen in recent years and the numbers identifying themselves as nonreligious. Eight-four per cent of people declared themselves Roman Catholic, an increase of almost 5 per cent since the last census. Much of this increase is down to the non-Irish community. The number of nonreligious jumped by 83,500, to almost 270,000, over the same period. Most of these were Irish nationals in their 20s and 30s.
Public services are under pressure in many areas. So why is having an even bigger population a good thing?Population growth will place more pressure on health, education and other public services at a time when the Government is trying to cut back on spending. But in the longer term it is good news for the sustainability of the country. We have the youngest population in the EU and the fewest dependants. In contrast, many other EU countries, such as Germany, are facing decreasing populations and higher numbers of dependants, and are trying to encourage people to have more children. CARL O'BRIEN
Today you need to know about . . . Earth Hour
In what has quickly become the world's largest symbolic gesture, millions of people in towns and cities across the planet are going to turn off the lights at 8.30pm today to mark the sixth annual Earth Hour. Organised by the World Wildlife Fund and designed to "encourage an interconnected global community to share the opportunities and challenges of creating a sustainable world", Earth Hour ( earthhour.org) has managed to capture the global imagination in a few short years.
Started in 2007 by WWF Australia, it originally saw Sydney Opera House and other landmarks plunged into darkness. The image got global media coverage, prompting a number of other cities and countries to become involved in the campaign.
This year, more than 5,000 cities and towns in more than 130 countries look set to extinguish their lights for 60 minutes. Landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, Times Square, Big Ben, Rio’s Christ the Redeemer, the Egyptian pyramids and Dublin’s Custom House are just some of the sites that will go dark, and candlelit events are planned around the world.
Even astronauts on the International Space Station, who will be in a decent position to see lights turning off across the globe, will turn off inessential lights to mark the event. DAVIN O'DWYER
Most read stories on irishtimes.com
1 To have one taoiseach on the take is unfortunate, to have two seems careless
2 State now morally as well as economically bankrupt
3 Food labelling in Ireland is a farce
4 On the Eve of stardom
5 Stories of abortion: by people who have been through it
6 Detached Shrewsbury home hits €5.5m
7 Protest after elephant escapes in Cork
8 Stynes funeral held in Melbourne
9 Fitzgerald deal reaches impasse
10 Eating chocolate ‘can keep you slim’
Rankings calculated from last Saturday until yesterday morning
