Core, mantle, crust — they are models of the very planet they are filling up at a rate worldwide approaching a billion a year.
The reader comments — approaching a thousand — are worth sampling, too.
The New Yorker's Twitter feed (@newyorker) is approaching a million followers.
Woods's worth is approaching a billion dollars, making him the richest sportsman in the world.
He pegged the Oscar audience as, variously, "a billion," "an estimated billion," "approaching a billion," "a reported billion," and "more than a billion".
(In Afghanistan, the number of service members who didn't make it home is fast approaching a thousand).
By The New Yorker August 18 ,2011 The New Yorker's Twitter feed (@newyorker) is approaching a million followers.
Before the economic downturn, the Mugrabis said that the value of their collection was approaching a billion dollars.
The current reality is that in the developing world a quarter of the population — approaching a billion people — is illiterate.
After four months and nine days of staring into this monitor for what has probably amounted in aggregate to something closely approaching a thousand hours, that's enough.
Rabies kills more than fifty thousand people each year; if left untreated, it has a mortality rate approaching a hundred per cent.
