Houses aren’t cheap these days. In fact, they are so not cheap that millions of young Americans are holding off on buying a home and are instead opting to rent for the foreseeable future. “Just how bad is it?”, you might be wondering. Well, this new visualization from construction app maker Builder Pad forces you to look at the problems the United States is facing in the real estate market in an entirely new way. From this perspective, you are able to see how much smaller a house you’ll be able to afford today vs. 2018 for the same amount of money. So, how much smaller has a $500,000 home become in your state?

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In order to reveal which states have the fastest-rising real estate prices, Builder Pad analyzed median listing prices by state in two distinct ways. First, is by percentage of square feet lost over the five year period between 2018 and 2023. The state that was hit the hardest in this metric is Montana where a $500K house is now 50.15% smaller. Just typing that out blows my mind.

The second metric used in this study is square feet lost over the same 5-year period. The state that lost the most square feet in a $500,000 house is Kansas with a drop of 2,280.26 square feet. That’s the equivalent of losing five (5!) two-car garages in living space. With virtually no end in sight for this real estate conundrum, what will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back?

What can go nearly six times the speed of sound and cost $2.5 trillion dollars to build and operate (adjusted for inflation)? The answer is the North American X-15, hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft that achieved the fastest aircraft flying speed of all time on October 3^rd, 1967 when it reached 4,520 miles per hour! That is an awe-inspiring 75 miles per minute and 1.25 miles per second. GlobalAir.com has launched a compelling (or propelling?) chart visualizing aircraft ranked by max flying speed. More than half of the aircraft shown are capable of flying faster than the sound of speed!

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How fast is the sound of speed anyway? Mach 1, or the speed of sound, varies depending on the temperature of the air (or other medium) that it is passing through. So at sea level on planet Earth at around 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the speed of sound is approximately 767 miles per hour. That means that the North American X-15, an aircraft operated by the United States Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, flew at a rate nearly six times as fast as the speed of sound. The record was achieved by William J. Knight, a Vietnam combat pilot and test pilot for the U.S. Air Force. During his 16 flights in the aircraft, Knight became one of the few non-NASA pilots to earn their Astronaut Wings by flying an airplane in space – this was achieved by reaching an altitude of 280,500 feet (53.125 miles). It truly is extraordinary how far aviation technology has come in a century!

Gems like rubies, emeralds, and diamonds are found in jewelry all over the world. Some countries are known for their prolific gemstone production. Do you know the countries are the biggest sources of each gemstone?

BriteCo, a jewelry insurance company, analyzed data from the U.S. Geological Survey and the International Gem Society to visualize the countries that produce the most of each type of gemstone.

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The graphic utilizes a world map to show which country produces the most of many different types of gems. The visualization also includes beautiful depictions of each gem included on the map as well as the kilograms of gemstones produced between 2016 and 2020.

These are the top-producing countries of some of the most popular gems:

• Amethyst: Zambia (4,465,166 kilograms)
• Diamond: Russia (22,720 kilograms)
• Emerald: Zambia (129,400 kilograms)
• Garnet: Tanzania (765,768 kilograms)
• Pearl: Burma (9,245 kilograms)
• Quartz: Brazil (69,830,000 kilograms)
• Ruby: Tanzania (99,000 kilograms)
• Sapphire: Kenya (45,339 kilograms)
• Topaz: Nigeria (77,793 kilograms)
• Turquoise: Iran (105,000 kilograms)

Overall, the top producer of gems around the world is Tanzania. The country is the top producer of six gemstones on the list (aquamarine, garnet, ruby, sunstone, tanzanite, and tourmaline). In fact, the name tanzanite was given to the gem by jewelry giant Tiffany & Co. in the 1960s to highlight how it can only be found in Tanzania. The mining area for tanzanite is just 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) long and 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) wide in the Manyara region of Tanzania. Tanzanite was named as a December birthstone in 2002 by the American Gem Trade Association.