Both samples show a negative relationship between government size and growth, though the reduction in growth as government becomes bigger is far more pronounced in Europe, particularly when government size exceeds 40 percent of GDP.

FORBES: Data in New World Bank Report Shows that Large Public Sectors Reduce Economic Growth

When free samples of expensive medications show up in our mailboxes, it is a different story.

CNN: Medicine in your junk mail

This is effective: samples of the air above breaking water show high concentrations of minute organisms normally found in the water.

ECONOMIST: Aerobiology

Samples in 1999 from fall chinook salmon in the Columbia River's Hanford Reach show that four-fifths of the females spawning there apparently began life as males.

CNN: Something's fishy with chinook salmon

"Apparently, those did not show any elevated level of concern, especially for asbestos, in the dust, " he said of the Brooklyn samples.

CNN: CDC, EPA: Little risk to public from sites