June & July 2020 product updates
An overview of the features that we built in the last two months.
July 24
Article
Latest
Our latest articles, data updates, and announcements
July 20
Article
Our history is a battle against the microbes: we lost terribly before science, public health, and vaccines allowed us to protect ourselves
For most of history, we were losing the battle against microbes. Vaccines were one of the breakthroughs that turned it around.
June 29
Article
A pandemic primer on excess mortality statistics and their comparability across countries
Excess mortality has become a key metric to understand the true impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. How is excess mortality measured; and what can we learn from cross-country comparisons?
June 22
Article
We teamed up with Kurzgesagt to make a video about climate change: 'Who Is Responsible For Climate Change? – Who Needs To Fix It?'
A video about the contributors to climate change, and how countries can work together.
June 03
Article
Best practices for governments reporting COVID-19 testing data
Not all countries report their data in a helpful way. To help official providers of testing data, we set out some simple recommendations based the best reporting practices across the countries included in our testing dataset.
June 02
Article
Google Mobility Trends: How has the pandemic changed the movement of people around the world?
Data tracking public mobility trends over the pandemic
May 14
Article
How to read the famous coronavirus trajectory chart — video explainer
What we can and can’t learn from COVID-19 charts.
May 14
Article
How do the carbon footprints of foods compare? Our article as a video.
Which foods have the highest and lowest carbon footprint?
March 23
Article
We teamed up with Kurzgesagt to make a video about the COVID-19 pandemic
We worked with the Youtube channel, Kurzgesagt, to make a video on the COVID-19 pandemic and what to do about it.
March 18
Article
Food waste is responsible for 6% of global greenhouse gas emissions
Food waste accounts for around one-quarter of greenhouse gas emissions from food. That's 6% of total global emissions.
March 10
Article
The carbon footprint of foods: are differences explained by the impacts of methane?
How we treat the climate impacts of methane matters a lot for the carbon footprint of foods. But even if we exclude methane, meat and dairy products emit the most.
March 04
Article
The Spanish flu: the global impact of the largest influenza pandemic in history
The Spanish flu pandemic had a devastating impact on the global population.
February 10
Article
What are the safest and cleanest sources of energy?
Fossil fuels are the dirtiest and most dangerous energy sources, while nuclear and modern renewable energy sources are vastly safer and cleaner.
February 04
Article
Less meat is nearly always better than sustainable meat, to reduce your carbon footprint
Plant-based protein sources still have a lower footprint than the lowest-impact meat products.
January 28
Article
Very little of global food is transported by air; this greatly reduces the climate benefits of eating local
Transporting food by plane can come with a large carbon footprint. But very little of our food travels this way – just 0.16% of food miles are from air travel.
January 24
Article
You want to reduce the carbon footprint of your food? Focus on what you eat, not whether your food is local
“Eat local” is a common recommendation to reduce your diet's carbon footprint. How does the impact of what you eat compare to where it comes from?
December 11
Article
Is there a loneliness epidemic?
The media claims we are experiencing a ‘loneliness epidemic’. What is the evidence for this?
December 11
Article
Are people more likely to be lonely in so-called 'individualistic' societies?
In countries such as Denmark and Switzerland, it is very common for people to live alone; but contrary to what many believe, this does not translate into higher loneliness. Loneliness and aloneness are not the same.
December 01
Article
Antiretroviral therapy has saved millions of lives from AIDS and could save more
Since the late 1980s, antiretroviral therapy has already saved millions of lives from HIV/AIDS. But millions of people with HIV still aren’t getting this life-saving treatment.
November 15
Article
The importance of personal relations for economic outcomes
Social connections matter for economic outcomes. Personal relations, even those that we maintain for non-economic reasons, often give us access to information and provide us with social collateral for economic transactions.
November 12
Article
Pneumonia — no child should die from a disease we can prevent
How many children die from pneumonia? How has this changed over time, and how can we prevent it?