It’s tornado season in the United States. We can now answer questions about tornado activity in the US from 1950 to 2011 (with data for 2012 coming soon).
For good measure, we’ve also added data on worldwide volcanic eruptions to our knowledge base.
Stephen Wolfram - the creator of Wolfram|Alpha, Mathematica, and author of A New Kind of Science - has collected personal data on pretty much everything for the past 20 years.
More cats on the internet! Now you can ask Wolfram|Alpha questions about the internet’s mascot!
Learn more on our blog.
Get a recap of all of last night’s Oscar winners with Wolfram|Alpha! You can also look up past nominees and winners.
Over the two and a half years since we first launched, Wolfram|Alpha has been growing rapidly in content and capabilities. But today’s introduction of Wolfram|Alpha Pro in effect adds a whole new model for interacting with Wolfram|Alpha—and brings all sorts of fundamentally new and remarkable capabilities.
Starting today, everyone has access to Wolfram|Alpha Pro at wolframalpha.com. Unlike the “tourist” version of Wolfram|Alpha, though, you have to log in, and, yes, to get full capabilities there’s a subscription ($4.99/month, or $2.99/month for students). (Right now, you can try it for free with a trial subscription.)
Learn about all the new features on our blog.
The United Nations has stated that the world population is expected to hit 7 billion people soon. That is a lot of people. Let’s try to put that into perspective.
According to Wolfram|Alpha, 7 billion people equals around 6.6 percent of the total number of Homo sapiens to have ever lived. 7 billion people also produce approximately 490 GW of heat, which is around 41 times the power of a space shuttle at launch. (It is also enough energy to power 405 flux capacitors, in case you were wondering.)
Once we hit that 7 billion people mark, China will make up 19.3 percent of the world population. 
Add India’s population to that, and the two countries make up 36.7 percent of the world population. The United States will be 4.4 percent of the 7 billion.
A breakdown of population in all countries in 2011 also helps put things into perspective.
Using the data we receive from the UN Population Division, it is predicted that by 2025 we will add another billion people to the world population.
What’s that in the sky? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Yup, it’s a plane, and it is currently 31,100 feet high and traveling to St. Louis from Chicago. Simply enter “planes overhead”, and Wolfram|Alpha will provide a list of flights overhead based on your current geoIP location.
You can also click on specific flights to learn more information, such as departure airport, estimated flight duration, and more:
See Stephen Wolfram’s talk, “Computing the World”, from the Strata Summit 2011 in NYC.
