Esteban Ortiz-Ospina
@eortizospina.bsky.social
4.7K followers 930 following 180 posts
Executive co-director @ourworldindata.org
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Reposted by Esteban Ortiz-Ospina
ourworldindata.org
Does the news reflect what we die from?
The image presents a comparison of the leading causes of death in the United States for 2023 and the media coverage these causes receive from three news outlets: The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Fox News. 

In the footer, it notes the data sources, indicating that the information is based on media mentions from Media Cloud (2025) and death data from the US CDC (2025) and the Global Terrorism Index, with a clarification that values are normalized to sum to 100%.
Reposted by Esteban Ortiz-Ospina
ourworldindata.org
💡New feature: hovering over links to charts shows a preview!

Look out for the little chart icon next to a link to know when you can see a preview.

Our colleague Ike Saunders had this idea just a couple days ago and he already built it and made it live on our site — thanks, Ike!
Reposted by Esteban Ortiz-Ospina
ourworldindata.org
India, China, Europe, and the United States are on very different population paths
The image displays a line graph titled "Population projections until the end of the century." The graph plots population projections from 1950 to 2100, with population values ranging from 0 to 1.8 billion. Four colored lines represent different regions: 

- A brown line indicates population projections for India, showing a steady increase peaking around 2060.
- A blue line represents China, which displays a peak around 2020 before declining.
- A red line shows Europe's population, which rises slightly before declining.
- A green line indicates the United States, which experiences moderate growth before leveling off.

Dotted lines illustrate the projections based on the United Nations' medium scenario assumptions. The data source is listed as "UN, World Population Prospects (2024)" The chart includes horizontal grid lines for better readability of the population figures and timelines. The overall design aims to convey trends in population growth and decline among these regions over time
Reposted by Esteban Ortiz-Ospina
hannahritchie.bsky.social
Our @ourworldindata.org we visualise weekly updates of wildfire data from the Global Wildfire Information System.

Spain was having a pretty low/average year until the past few weeks when it went roaring past previous years.

You can track this data here:
ourworldindata.org/wildfires
Reposted by Esteban Ortiz-Ospina
ourworldindata.org
Gold export data suggests that Peru, one of the world’s largest producers, mines nearly as much informally as it does formally—

According to official mining output records, Peru mined about 90 tonnes of gold in 2023, far ahead of any other South American country.
eortizospina.bsky.social
Duolingo came out fully embracing AI in April, and it’s hard not to read their latest revenue growth numbers alongside this new report on the state of formal language learning in the UK
Reposted by Esteban Ortiz-Ospina
ourworldindata.org
✍️ New article: “$3 a day: A new poverty line has shifted the World Bank’s data on extreme poverty. What changed, and why?” 🧵
A line chart showing the global number of people living in extreme poverty. Extreme poverty is defined as living below the International Poverty Line (IPL), which is $2.15 per day in 2017 prices (shown as a red line on the chart) and $3 per day in 2021 prices (shown as a blue line).

125 million people who would not have been counted as extremely poor before June 2025 (when the IPL was raised to $3 per day) are now included.

This data is adjusted for inflation and for differences in living costs between countries. The data source is the World Bank (2024 and 2025). The chart is CC BY Our World in Data.
Reposted by Esteban Ortiz-Ospina
eortizospina.bsky.social
The reactions that many people had about 4o disappearing overnight really look like that scene from Her where Theodore realises the operating system is down. These screenshots I posted some weeks ago give a bit of a view into what some of these conversations that people miss actually looked like
eortizospina.bsky.social
The reactions that many people had about 4o disappearing overnight really look like that scene from Her where Theodore realises the operating system is down. These screenshots I posted some weeks ago give a bit of a view into what some of these conversations that people miss actually looked like
eortizospina.bsky.social
When the World Bank publishes new poverty estimates, it makes headlines. But making sense of these numbers is harder than it looks! Inflation, PPPs, national poverty lines, real incomes…There’s a lot going on.

In this article my colleagues explain where the new numbers come from and what changed
$3 a day: A new poverty line has shifted the World Bank’s data on extreme poverty. What changed, and why?
In June 2025, the World Bank increased its extreme poverty estimates by 125 million people. This doesn’t mean the world has gotten poorer: it reflects a new, higher International Poverty Line of $3 a ...
ourworldindata.org
Reposted by Esteban Ortiz-Ospina
scientificdiscovery.dev
New article by me!

Cardiovascular disease mortality rates have declined by around three-quarters since 1950, but we rarely hear about it.

I explore some of the reasons behind the decline.
ourworldindata.org/cardiovascul...
This image depicts a line graph showing cardiovascular mortality rates in the United States from 1933 to 2023, alongside key advancements in medicine, surgery, and public health. The y-axis represents age-standardized death rates from cardiovascular disease, ranging from 0 to 600. The x-axis represents years from 1933 to 2023. 

The graph starts at around 600 deaths per 100,000 people in 1933 and trends downward sharply over the decades, indicating a significant decline in mortality rates. Key advancements are marked along the timeline, including the introduction of the first heart-lung machine in 1953, the first cardiac CT scan in 1977, and the first 3D-printed heart models in 2012. 

Footnote information states that data begins in 1933 when all U.S. states started reporting cardiovascular mortality rates, sourced from the National Center for Heart Statistics in 2020 and the CDC Wonder in 2025. The chart is published by Saloni Dattani at Our World in Data.
Reposted by Esteban Ortiz-Ospina
eortizospina.bsky.social
2/Cars are a useful comparison for thinking about technology adoption, because they are powerful, dangerous, and common. In just over a century, we moved from the first mass-produced car to about 1.2 billion cars on the road.
eortizospina.bsky.social
If you struggle to understand why/how people chat to ChatGPT for hours without any goal, just for fun, have a look at this conversation that someone posted on Reddit: www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/s/...

I’ll share the first couple of screenshots but click and read the whole thing, including comments.
eortizospina.bsky.social
17/ OK, this got very long. My point is that I think we need more coordinated approaches to rethink how we want to work with AI, especially in institutions that shape knowledge/skills. Leadership at universities should tackle this as an institutional challenge, and timing matters.
[END]
eortizospina.bsky.social
16/ I do think we should worry about how AI might evolve, we must stay mindful of its current limitations, we should demand more from policymakers and AI companies. But adoption isn’t waiting. For universities in particular, the time to thoughtfully engage with AI is now.
eortizospina.bsky.social
15/ I think an underlying issue is the gap in the public conversation that leaves people who could shape how AI is integrated into daily life feeling disempowered. Discourse swings between two extremes: AI is either dangerously powerful or disappointingly limited and can only make us dumber.
eortizospina.bsky.social
14/ I see this in higher ed too. We're spending much more preventing/catching plagiarism, than redesigning how students practice, reflect, and build expertise with AI.
Similarly, peer-reviewed journals seem on an unsustainable path: paper writing is getting easier with AI, but paper review isn’t.
eortizospina.bsky.social
13/ My children's homework looks much like mine did decades ago. Yet even my 10yo daughter, who doesn't have a phone or tablet, knows she can ask me to use ChatGPT for homework help. And her teachers, too, sometimes use ChatGPT to come up with the homework.
eortizospina.bsky.social
12/ Teachers already use AI to create material; students already use it to complete assignments. But institutions rarely rethink what education *is* with AI. We should be reexamining how we teach, learn, delegate tasks, to avoid replicating old patterns with new tools.
eortizospina.bsky.social
11/ We definitely need regulation, policies, guardrails, etc. But in my view there’s also a critical gap that the current user base can help fill now, in how AI is integrated into workflows and life. Education shows this clearly.
eortizospina.bsky.social
10/ That’s a key point: Most conversations I hear tend to focus on the future, but mass adoption is *already* here. Yes, benefits are often oversold, and the chatbots make mistakes, etc. But useful imperfect tools can be deeply disruptive when adoption is so widespread.
eortizospina.bsky.social
9/ Historically, even fast shifts like the rise of cars took more time. Coach drivers became obsolete quickly after cars replaced horse-drawn carriages, but there was still a window for older workers to retire, and fewer young people entered. AI is leaving less room for such natural adjustments.