It's been a wild 12 months for biotech company Bluebird Bio (BLUE -2.56%). The gene-editing specialist initially wasn't even sure it had enough funds to complete the fiscal year, but since then, it has earned U.S. approval for two key therapies, the central reason why its shares have more than doubled in the past six months as of this writing.
Instagram now has more than 1M advertisers, doubling in past 6 months
A clear relationship between solvent and hearing impairment is difficult to assess through the available epidemiological studies. The workplace environments where noise and solvents can be simultaneously present are typically complex (for example, see critical review of Lawton et al., 2006; Hoet and Lison, 2008). Quite often, the workers were exposed to multiple substances. Furthermore, most of these studies had a cross-sectional design that featured a number of weaknesses in the interpretation of the findings. For instance, chronic effects were related to currently measured exposures. In some cases, the exposure concentrations measured at the time of the study were markedly lower than those ascertained in past years (Morata et al., 1993).
As of 2012, the company had completed 250 noise reduction projects across 60 facilities, investing $2 million. The results averaged approximately 6 dBA noise reduction per project (and up to 22 dBA for some projects). Noise exposure was reduced for more than 5,000 workers through these projects (the math suggests that this equates to an average cost of $400 per worker). Many of these projects also resulted in energy savings, cleaner facilities, and improved equipment life. One of Colgate-Palmolive's goals is to create a "Zero Hearing Protection" site. Because the company uses the ACGIH-TLV criteria (i.e., 85 dBA with 3 dBA doubling rate) or the local regulation, whichever is more stringent, this goal will reduce worker noise exposure to levels well below OSHA's permissible exposure limit (PEL) and action level (AL).
Etsy added nearly three million sellers over the past twelve months to reach twelve million. At the start of 2020, it had less than seven million sellers. It also doubled the number of active sellers over the same period. The number of sellers joining the marketplace accelerated in April 2020 and remained elevated, continuing the growth spurt started by the pandemic. The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia, France, India, Turkey, Russia, and Spain were the most common countries of the newly joined sellers (in that order). That allowed Etsy to surpass 125 million products for sale; it had 60 million at the start of 2020.
eBay had 800,000 stores, plus millions more sellers that were selling casually. The vast majority of the top sellers on eBay had an eBay Store, which acts like a small website hosted on eBay and allows the seller to apply their branding. 30% of those sellers joined eBay over the past five years. And yet, 45% joined more than ten years ago. The United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, and Australia were the most common countries. The marketplace was adding new sellers, but most of its core were veteran sellers. However, the total number did not increase as sellers churned as fast as new ones joined.
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