The length of software tasks AI systems can do on their own has been increasing quickly

Tracking the occurrence of natural disasters can save lives by helping countries prepare for future ones.

In our work on natural disasters, we visualize data from EM-DAT, the most comprehensive international disaster database. Make a chart of the number of recorded disaster events over time — like the one above — and it looks like the number of disasters rose alarmingly from the 1970s to the millennium. This has led to many media outlets and organizations claiming that the number of disasters has quadrupled over the last 50 years.

However, as EM-DAT itself makes clear, most of this is due to improvements in recording. The Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, which builds this database, was not established until 1973, and didn’t start publishing EM-DAT until 1988.

The number of recorded disasters increased due to more focused efforts to obtain globally comprehensive data and improvements in communication technologies, which allowed more events to be included, even in the planet's most remote areas.

EM-DAT suggests that only data from 2000 onwards is relatively complete and comparable. The number of events before 2000 is likely to be underestimated. Note that this data does not tell us anything about the intensity of disasters.

Read my full article, with my colleague Pablo Rosado, on the limitations of disaster databases →

Global military spending reached its lowest point of $1.2 trillion in the late 1990s. Since then, military spending has more than doubled, reaching $2.7 trillion in 2024.

The chart shows a drop in military spending after the Cold War ended in 1989. This freed up resources for public expenditure in other domains, sometimes called the “peace dividend”.

But global military spending surged again in the 2000s, partially driven by US spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, reaching $2 trillion by 2010. After stabilizing for a few years, it has risen sharply in recent years, fueled in part by the war in Ukraine.

Despite these increases, military spending as a share of GDP remains lower than in 1988 in most countries, as economies have grown substantially over this period.

We’ve recently updated our charts on military spending — browse them for different countries in our data catalog →

In 1796, Edward Jenner developed the world’s first vaccine against smallpox. As it was refined and widely adopted, many countries in Europe and North America, the Soviet Union, and island nations eliminated smallpox through national vaccination programs.

But in the mid-20th century, the disease remained widespread across Africa and Asia, infecting tens of millions every year.

Before the World Health Organization (WHO) committed to eradication in 1959, few believed it was possible, given the failures of other eradication efforts like malaria. But smallpox had no animal reservoir, clear symptoms, and there was an effective, low-cost vaccine.

By 1967, the WHO intensified the eradication campaign with more funding. The strategy focused on “ring vaccination” — containing outbreaks by vaccinating people around each case — and embedding the work within local health programs.

As the chart shows, this approach worked swiftly: within a decade, the number of endemic countries fell to zero. Smallpox was officially declared eradicated in 1980, two centuries after Jenner’s discovery. It’s a lasting triumph of science and cooperation.

Read more on our page on smallpox →

Thirty years ago, Portugal had some of the most fatal roads in Europe. It was second only to Latvia in terms of death rates from road injuries.

But since then, death rates have fallen by 84%.

The chart shows road deaths per 100,000 people compared to other European countries. This metric is age-standardized, so it keeps the population's age distribution constant over time.

Portugal still has slightly higher death rates than many of its neighbors in Western Europe, but the gap is much smaller than in the 1990s.

Portugal’s roads have become much safer for many reasons, including seatbelt laws, speed limits, stricter drink-driving enforcement, better road design and pedestrian zones, and improvements in the safety and resilience of cars themselves.

While it made dramatic improvements over the 1990s and early 2000s, this progress has slowed in the last five to ten years.

Explore road death rates across other countries →

Losing a child is one of the worst things that can happen to a parent.

Imagine living in a world where there was a one-in-three chance your child would die. This wasn't just the reality for your children; it could just as well happen to your siblings, friends, or neighbors.

Such a world seems unimaginable today, but it wasn’t too far from reality two centuries ago, even in some economically advanced countries.

The chart shows the share of newborns who died before age five in the Netherlands since 1840. These historical estimates are more uncertain than recent data, but it's likely that before the 1870s, about one-in-three newborns died. Each birth carried odds no parent today could contemplate facing.

But a huge amount of progress has been made since then. Today, one in 250 Dutch children dies. This progress was driven by many factors, including improvements in nutrition, access to clean water, sanitation, vaccines, and reductions in poverty.

To learn more, read my colleague Hannah’s recent article: “Children in rich countries are much less likely to die than a few decades ago, but we rarely hear about this progress” →

You might be surprised to learn that a common stomach infection can lead to cancer. That infection is caused by Helicobacter pylori — H. pylori for short — a bacterium that can live in the stomach lining for decades.

The infection often begins in childhood and may not cause symptoms right away. But over time, it can damage the stomach’s protective lining, causing inflammation and ulcers. In some people, it eventually leads to cancer.

The map shows that in parts of Asia and South America, H. pylori is responsible for about 10% of all new cancer cases. The International Agency for Research on Cancer estimates that it causes around 800,000 cancer cases globally each year, making it one of the top infectious causes of cancer.

The good news is that the infection can be detected with a simple test and eliminated with antibiotics. If caught early, the risk of stomach cancer can be dramatically reduced. Since the bacterium is often transmitted through contaminated food and water, better sanitation and food safety also make a difference.

Read more about infections that cause cancers, and how they can be prevented or treated →

To tackle climate change, the world must transition away from fossil fuels and towards low-carbon power sources.

Greece is almost there when it comes to coal. Coal became the dominant source of electricity in the second half of the 20th century, but it has fallen out of favor in the 21st.

The chart shows that just over a decade ago, almost half of the country’s power came from coal. This has now fallen to 6%.

Solar and wind have replaced it; their share has tripled in the last decade; when combined, they’ve become the largest source.

As a result, the country’s CO₂ emissions from coal have fallen by nearly 90% from their peak, and national emissions as a whole have halved.

Solar and wind are growing rapidly in many countries; explore this data in our energy data explorer →