SortStack #424 — 2027-08-07

By duration · Order from shortest to longest.

1. A single wingbeat of a hovering hummingbird 12.6 ms

   Up to 80 wingbeats per second lets hummingbirds hover, fly backwards, and even fly upside down — no other bird can do all three.

2. A proper hand wash, by WHO guidelines 19.8 sec

   The recommended scrub lasts about as long as singing 'Happy Birthday' twice — most people manage barely a third of it.

3. A standard television commercial 30 sec

   A single Super Bowl slot of this length has sold for over US$7 million — more than US$230,000 per second of airtime.

4. A performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony 74 min

   Legend says the CD was designed to hold 74 minutes specifically so the Ninth would fit on a single disc — a Sony executive's favourite piece.

5. The average adult's actual night of sleep 6.8 h

   Smartphone-tracking studies put the global average well under the recommended eight hours — and humans sleep less than virtually any other primate.

6. A frilled shark's pregnancy 3.5 years

   At an estimated three and a half years, it's the longest known gestation of any vertebrate — embryos grow just over a centimetre a month.

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