Two cool tools

Gapminder -- is an amazing interactive online tool for visualizing how the world distribution of income, life-expectancy and access to health and other basic services has evolved across 'countries' over time, beginning in the early 1800s. Explore the site, and once you've gotten familiar with the general idea, spend a good while exploring the data yourself using Gapminder World.

As an interesting exercise with Gapminder World focus on a couple countries in Asia (e.g. India, China, Korea, Bangladesh) and compare their performance over time to countries in Africa (e.g. Kenya, Malawi, Sierra Leone) or Latin America (e.g. Guatemala, Argentina, Brazil). Press 'Play' and follow their comparative evolution over time.

Google Earth -- many of you may be familiar with google maps as a way to navigate city streets, but this is literally a world apart. Once you download and install a (free) file to you computer and if you have a fast internet connection you can now visualize the entire globe and take it for a spin. Zoom in on particular areas of the earth to explore the topography and forest cover, and look at the visual and text commentary 'overlays' submitted by hundreds of users worldwide (e.g. data to build 'global hunger map').

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