July 16, 2024
In recent years, tens of thousands of people have died due to fighting between drug cartels in Mexico.
The chart uses data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program to show the country's deaths from “non-state conflicts” over the last thirty years.
These conflicts involve fighting between non-state armed groups, which in Mexico are criminal organizations like the Jalisco, Juarez, Los Zetas, and Sinaloa drug cartels.
Before the 2000s, there were relatively few deaths from these conflicts. The number of deaths then began to increase, reaching a peak of over 18,000 deaths in 2021.
Yesterday
Over the 1980s and 1990s, the rise in HIV/AIDS deaths seemed unstoppable. Several effective antiretroviral drugs had been developed, but people with HIV still died from the disease because the virus would evolve to evade each drug.
Thankfully, scientists discovered that a combination of drugs could create a significant barrier to HIV’s evolution. This new treatment, highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), was first introduced in 1995 in the United States.
Data from the National Center for Health Statistics shows the massive impact of HAART in the chart. HIV/AIDS mortality dropped steeply after it was introduced.
It profoundly improved the survival of people with HIV and reduced their risk of passing it on to others.
Read more about the impact of antiretroviral therapy →
August 27
Exoplanets are planets that orbit stars other than the Sun. Their existence was first confirmed in 1992 when astronomers Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail identified two exoplanets orbiting a star located 2,300 light-years from Earth.
As shown in this chart, from 1992 to 2005, scientists discovered two hundred more exoplanets. They primarily used a method called "radial velocity". This technique works by detecting small changes in the color of a star due to the gravitational pull of a planet orbiting it.
But starting in the mid-2000s, the "transit method” vastly accelerated the pace of exoplanet discovery. This method detects tiny dips in a star’s brightness when a planet passes in front of it. This dimming can reveal a planet's presence and provide information about its size and orbit.
As is often the case with technological change, what was once a unique scientific achievement has become a much more frequent occurrence. The advancements in detection methods now allow us to discover hundreds of exoplanets each year.
Adding up all methods of identification, more than 5,500 exoplanets have been found by scientists worldwide, according to data from NASA's Exoplanet Archive.
Browse more charts on astronomy and space exploration →
August 26
Richer people tend to have more diverse diets. They get a lower share of their calories from staples such as cereals, roots, and tubers and increase their consumption of fruit, vegetables, dairy, and meat.
The chart shows the relationship between meat supply and gross domestic product (GDP) per person. Meat supply — as reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations — measures the average quantity of meat available for consumers. It includes how much people ultimately eat and any consumer waste.
There is a strong positive relationship: people in wealthier countries tend to eat more meat per person. This has also meant that as the world has gotten richer, global meat production has increased.
Explore the data →
August 23
This chart shows the share of reported deaths caused by cardiovascular diseases and cancer since 1950 in Denmark, Australia, the UK, and Canada. This is based on the underlying cause listed on death certificates and comes from the WHO Mortality Database (2024); we recently updated our charts with the latest release.
Fifty years ago, around half of all deaths in these countries were due to cardiovascular diseases. Today, this proportion has dropped to between 20% and 25%. Cancer has become the most common cause of death in many of these countries, even though overall cancer mortality rates have also been declining.
Many factors contribute to these trends, such as declines in smoking and improvements in screening, diagnosis, and monitoring.
These countries are also leading the use of statins, medicines that lower cholesterol, which likely have had a significant effect on reducing heart-related deaths.
Even though fewer people are dying from cardiovascular diseases in some of these wealthy countries, heart disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide.
Read more on the different types of cardiovascular diseases →
August 22
Recent data from Global Forest Watch shows trends in tree cover loss, split by five drivers: forestry, shifting agriculture, and wildfires, which lead to temporary tree cover loss, while commodity-driven deforestation and urbanization often cause permanent deforestation.
This dataset combines time-series data of tree cover loss, estimated from satellite imagery using research by Matthew Hansen and colleagues, with research on the drivers of deforestation by Philip Curtis and colleagues.
The drivers of tree cover loss vary markedly across regions. Wildfires and forestry (logging) are the main drivers of tree cover loss in Europe and North America, with wildfires mainly occurring in Canada and Russia. Tree cover loss from wildfires does not include fire clearing for agriculture.
Commodity-driven deforestation is a key cause in Asia and South America, largely due to trends in Brazil and Indonesia. Shifting agriculture — where trees are cleared so the land can be cultivated temporarily before being abandoned — is the dominant driver of tree cover loss in Africa and a major driver in South America.
Explore the drivers of tree cover loss for all countries and regions →
August 21
Countries have very different rates of homelessness, according to the OECD’s Affordable Housing Database.
The chart shows that more than 300 out of every 100,000 are reported homeless in France, while it’s fewer than 20 in Finland.
In about half of the countries, more than 100 in every 100,000 people are homeless. That means more than one per thousand people.
There are also differences in types of homelessness. The United States, for example, has relatively high numbers of people living in the streets or public spaces but fewer in temporary accommodations or shelters.
Not all countries on the chart can be directly compared. For example, Japan and Greece only report data on one type of homelessness, so they don’t give a complete picture of the total population affected by homelessness.
Explore our updated and expanded topic page on homelessness →
August 20
The chart shows the weekly area burned by wildfires globally and in Africa from 2012 to 2024. This August saw an abrupt increase in the area burned by wildfires, with most of this rise coming in a single week.
This global weekly burn rate was 64% higher than any previous week during this period. This data comes from the Global Wildfire Information System.
This dramatic rise was mostly driven by severe wildfires in Africa, where approximately 22 million hectares burned in a week, accounting for around 80% of the global burned area.
Two countries have been particularly hard-hit — Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo — where 6% and 2.5% of the total land area have burned in just one week.
Explore wildfire data across the world, updated weekly →
