A Date with Data — Issue 10
It’s our 10th issue, and we’ve been “dating” data for two months! Here are the stories that grabbed our attention from the past week, Oct. 1 — Oct. 7.
The Opportunity Atlas
Oct. 1, 2018
What does it take to rise out of poverty? Can big data offer the answer? Where you grew up seems to make a difference, according to a recent study by the U.S. Census Bureau, Harvard University, and Brown University. Collecting anonymous data from 20 million Americans from childhood to their mid-30s, the researchers traced the roots of poverty and affluence to the neighborhoods where people grew up. To show the children’s outcomes in adulthood and make them useful to citizens and policy makers, the researchers mapped their findings on a series of interactive maps to help us discover whether raising a child in a specific neighborhood steers them towards a better life. UNITED STATES CENSUS BUREAU
Shifting causes of death
Oct. 2, 2018
How has the list of top 10 causes of death changed between the years 1999 and 2016? After the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released their latest annual report, the blog FlowingData created an interactive graphic showing how the most common ways to die have changed over time. Looking at the different age groups, for males and females, you can discover which causes of death disappeared from the picture — literally — and which climbed to the top over the last decades. As the author Nathan Yau points out: by the early 2000s death of HIV dropped outside of the top 10, while intentional self-harm among young and middle-aged men and women is sadly climbing up the list. FLOWINGDATA
#MeToo: One Year Later
Oct. 5, 2018
In the one-year anniversary of the publication of a story in The New York Times that gave rise to a global conversation around sexual harassment in the workplace, and which within days fuelled the #MeToo hashtag movement, Bloomberg gathered the hard facts behind this movement to give us a sense of its magnitude. Today, a year later, #MeToo has spread from Hollywood to various industries, up to the high court, with a total of 425 people publicly accused. In a series of graphs, the journalists explored, among other questions, how many of these abuses happened by industry, how many public allegations reported in the media every week, and how many times the hashtag was used on Twitter every day. BLOOMBERG
Gender parity in science is an uphill struggle
Oct. 3, 2018
Why are there still so few female winners of the Nobel prize? In two graphics the Economist revealed the number of men and women Nobel prizewinners between 1901 and 2018, and the increasing number of doctorate degrees awarded to women in the last 50 years. Although the number of women with PhDs is climbing, only a few gain prestigious research positions which could yield a Nobel prize. Hopefully, closing this gender gap is just a matter of time as Nobel prizes are often awarded for research conducted years ago and prizewinners today still reflect a reality from a previous era. There’s still a long way to go though, which is all the more reason to inspire the next generation of girls to get into science. GRAPHIC DETAIL — THE ECONOMIST
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading!
