Emissions of substances that deplete the ozone layer have fallen by more than 99% since 1989

Today's data insight is by Esteban Ortiz-Ospina.

You can find all of our Data Insights on their dedicated feed: ourworldindata.org/data-insights

Mars' retrograde motion, astronomically speaking

It has come to my attention that I have done insufficient self-promotion & some of you don't even know I have a podcast.

I do! It's called Volts & it's about clean energy. And -- if I may say so myself -- it's been on a bit of a roll lately. A 🧵.

How many human cases of H5N1 have there been historically? We just updated our dataset on this. Find it here: ourworldindata.org/grapher/h5n1-f…

This only shows reported cases — testing to confirm flu subtypes is limited, especially for subtypes like H5N1.

I see that Metaculus has a median forecast of 3% that human H5N1 cases will exceed 500,000 before the end of the year.

But, only 28 people have made a forecast, and there's only 1 forecast in the last month! Could we get more interest/thoughts on this?
metaculus.com/questions/1501…

A short distraction from MooFlu (© TompkinsLab) to BatFlu:

'The bat-borne influenza A virus H9N2 exhibits a set of unexpected pre-pandemic features'

from Schwemmle Lab and company

assets.researchsquare.com/files/rs-29375…

This is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. I don't know why OP deleted it, but I think it needs to be preserved for posterity.

Recently published paper in the Journal of Public Economics :

'The econometrics of happiness: Are we underestimating the returns to education and income?'
Vol 230 (Feb 2024)

by Chris Barrington-Leigh (@profcpbl )

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

How well do people know their own social abilities? Patrick Heck, Matt Brown, and I ran two studies (N=927) that each showed a surprising pattern: a negative relationship between people's self-rated skill and actual performance for social ability. People who rated their social skills…

If you're 18-22 years old, consider applying for Works in Progress's summer school in August.

It features Saloni Dr Anton Howes Stuart Ritchie 🇺🇦, and others, on topics like the causes of the Industrial Revolution and the dysfunctions of modern science.

worksinprogress.news/p/apply-to-com…

Very important to note here that qPCR positives are not the same as 'virus particles.' It's much easier to detect viral RNA by qPCR than it is to detect infectious virus or intact virus particles (as the article correctly notes).

This finding does have some big implications: