The people who use AI the most are also the most worried about it
Pew's 2026 data shows the youngest U.S. adults use AI chatbots the most, yet they are also the most likely to expect AI to harm society.
Dr. Randal S. Olson
AI Researcher & Builder - Blog posts on AI, machine learning, data science, and data visualization
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In AI-exposed jobs, only the youngest workers are losing ground
Since ChatGPT, employment for U.S. workers aged 22 to 25 in the most AI-exposed jobs has fallen about 12%, while every older age group held steady or grew.
The Strait of Hormuz is Asia's oil lifeline, not the U.S.'s
As the 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis stoked U.S. oil fears, only about 7% of U.S. crude imports actually pass through it. Asia relies on it far more.
The world's richest person has never been this far ahead of No. 2
Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire on June 12, 2026. His fortune is now about 3.7x the second-richest person, the widest gap on record.
The 2026 NBA Finals drew the biggest TV audience since 1998
The 2026 Knicks-Spurs Finals averaged 20.6 million viewers, double last year and the most since 1998, reversing a long slide in NBA TV ratings.
GLP-1 use peaks in middle age, then drops at 65
About 1 in 8 U.S. adults now take a GLP-1 like Ozempic, but use peaks in middle age: 22% at ages 50-64, falling to 9% at 65+ as Medicare stops covering it.
U.S. abortions rose after Dobbs, driven by mailed pills
Dobbs was supposed to cut U.S. abortions. It did not. The national total rose after 2022, and the whole increase is telehealth: abortion pills by mail.
ICE detention hit a record, and most detainees have no conviction
U.S. immigration detention hit a record 70,000+ people in early 2026, and TRAC data shows about 7 in 10 detainees have no criminal conviction.
Curaçao is the smallest nation ever at a World Cup
The 48 nations at the 2026 World Cup span a 2,181x gap in population, from the United States (340M) to Curaçao (156,000), the smallest ever to qualify.
The rise in LGBTQ+ identification is mostly young women
Nearly 1 in 3 Gen Z women in the U.S. identifies as LGBTQ+, versus 12% of Gen Z men. Gallup data shows the generational surge is mostly about women.
Honey bees are dying at record rates, but the colony count holds steady
U.S. beekeepers lost a record 55.6% of their colonies in 2024-25, yet the total number of managed honey bee colonies has barely moved in 15 years.
CO2 is piling up faster every decade, and 2026 just set a record
Atmospheric CO2 hit a record 432 ppm in May 2026, but the deeper story is the pace: CO2 is now piling up about 3 times faster than it did in the 1960s.
New U.S. college grads now have higher unemployment than the average worker
A recent U.S. college degree long meant lower unemployment than the average worker. That edge flipped in 2019, and the gap is now the widest on record.
Gas prices feel like a record in 2026. Adjusted for inflation, they are not
U.S. gas prices jumped nearly 60% since January in the 2026 oil crisis, but adjusted for inflation they sit below the 1981, 2008, and 2022 peaks.
The countries that work the most hours produce the least per hour
Across 40 OECD economies, the countries that log the most annual hours have the lowest output per hour. Why working longer rarely means producing more.
U.S. World War II veterans are fading from living memory
Of the 16.4 million who served in World War II, the VA projects about 31,000 U.S. veterans are still alive in 2026, nearing zero by the early 2040s.
How chess openings rose and fell, 1850 to 2026
A streamgraph of 1.2 million master-level games shows the King's Pawn losing ground, the Queen's Pawn rising, and the Sicilian taking over after 1945.
The Misery Index Stopped Predicting the National Mood
By the misery index the U.S. economy is unremarkable, yet consumer sentiment is at an all-time low. That breaks a 40-year link no single number explains.
The 2026 Indy 500 was the closest finish in race history
Felix Rosenqvist beat David Malukas by 0.0233 seconds at the 2026 Indianapolis 500, breaking the 1992 closest-finish record that had stood for 34 years.
NOAA's hurricane outlook misses one way: it underforecasts big seasons
From 2003 to 2025 the Atlantic named-storm total fell outside NOAA's May range 9 times, 8 of them underforecasts. NOAA's 2026 outlook lands May 21.
Inflation worry flipped party lines while inflation itself barely moved
Pew Research finds Republicans and Democrats traded places on inflation worry from 2024 to 2026, even though CPI rose less than a percentage point.
U.S. measles cases broke the post-elimination floor in 2025 and 2026
The U.S. reported 2,288 measles cases in 2025 and 1,842 by May 7, 2026, 23x the typical post-elimination year. WHO reviews elimination status in November.
1 in 5 U.S. registered nurses are now 65 or older
The U.S. registered nurse workforce has split into two extremes: 1 in 5 RNs are now 65 or older, and the under-30 share fell to a 10-year low.
U.S. federal workforce hits 60-year low after fastest peacetime cut
Year over year, U.S. federal civilian employment is shrinking faster than at any point since 1939 outside wars and the decennial Census.
World Happiness Report 2026: what income can't explain
In the 2026 World Happiness Report, all but one Latin American country scores above what income predicts. East Asia shows the opposite pattern.
Mexico ships 83% of every fresh avocado the U.S. imports
In 2025, the U.S. imported 2.7 billion pounds of fresh avocados. Mexico supplied 83%. Peru, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic split the rest.
No horse has broken Secretariat's 1973 Kentucky Derby record
Winning times at the Kentucky Derby improved steadily from 1896 through 1973, then hit a wall. Secretariat's 1:59.40 remains the only sub-2:00 Derby ever run.
U.S. women 40+ now have more babies per capita than teens
Teen pregnancy was a defining U.S. public health worry of the 1990s. Having a baby at 40 was rare. 30 years later those positions have flipped.
U.S. drug overdose deaths are down 35% from the 2022 peak
U.S. drug overdose deaths peaked at 107,941 in 2022, then fell two years in a row to a provisional 70,000 in 2025: a 35% drop from the peak.
U.S. birth rate fell to a record low in 2025
The CDC reported in April 2026 that the U.S. general fertility rate fell to 53.1 in 2025, a record low in data going back to 1909.
Artemis II ended humanity's 54-year confinement to low Earth orbit
After Apollo 17 in 1972, every crewed mission stayed inside low Earth orbit. Artemis II broke that streak in April 2026 on a lunar flyby of 406,771 km.
Sabastian Sawe ran the first sub-2-hour marathon: 118 years of marathon records
On April 26, 2026, Kenya's Sabastian Sawe ran 1:59:30 at London to become the first man to break two hours in a record-eligible marathon.
Every Atlantic hurricane track, 1980 to 2025
Every Atlantic tropical cyclone from 1980 to 2025 on one map. The shape of the basin and the deadliest storms of 46 seasons emerge from the density.
U.S. oil: from peak importer to net exporter in one decade
The U.S. imported a record 13.7 MMb/d of oil in 2005. By 2025 it exports 2.8 MMb/d more than it imports. Here is what actually changed.
A thousand springs in Kyoto, in one chart
Kyoto's 1,200-year cherry blossom record shows modern decades hold the earliest cluster of blooms ever seen. A warming signal written in flowers.
130 years of Boston Marathon winning times
John Korir broke a 15-year-old Boston Marathon course record in 2026. The full 1897-2026 arc shows why, and what the women's line has been doing.
Libraries were transforming. Then COVID hit.
Two decades of IMLS data show U.S. libraries were successfully pivoting from book warehouses to community hubs. Then the pandemic set the transformation back years.
The Claude Code leak in four charts: half a million lines, three accidents, forty tools
Community mirrors of the @anthropic-ai/claude-code npm package spilled 513k lines of TypeScript. Four charts break down what was inside.
Every generation rediscovers art: 270 years of cultural interests in one chart
Engraving dominated the 1800s until photography killed it. 270 years of book data show how every generation picks its own art forms.
The rise and fall of bowling in the United States
The U.S. had roughly 12,000 bowling alleys at the peak of the bowling boom in the mid-1960s. By 2023, only 3,154 remained.
The rise and fall of nuclear weapons testing
Between 1945 and 1998, seven countries detonated over 2,000 nuclear weapons across just a handful of remote test sites. This chart maps every one of them.
Housing and getting around eat half of the average American household's spending
A treemap of BLS data shows where the average American household spent its $78,535 in 2024. Housing and transportation alone account for half.
96% of U.S. counties grew more diverse from 2010 to 2020
A county-level map of how racial diversity changed across America between the 2010 and 2020 Census. The Northeast and Midwest diversified fastest.
The engineering and tech gender gap has barely budged in 50 years
Computer Science and Engineering remain below 25% women after 50 years. How the gender composition of U.S. college majors changed from 1970-2022.
Americans eat 3x more cheese and half as much milk as they did in 1970
USDA data reveals how the American diet has transformed since 1970. Cheese consumption tripled, chicken surpassed beef, and fluid milk was cut in half.
Where racial diversity lives in America, county by county
A county-level map of racial and ethnic diversity in the U.S., built from 2020 Census data. The national diversity index crossed 61% for the first time.
Americans used to outlive their peers. Now they die 4 years sooner.
In 1960, Americans lived 1.5 years longer than peers in wealthy nations. By 2023, they die 4 years sooner. World Bank data shows how the U.S. fell behind.
Working your way through college now takes 5x more hours than in 1970
In 1970, a student could work 5 hours per week at minimum wage to cover public university tuition. By 2022, that number hit 26.
Coal collapsed and natural gas took over the U.S. power grid
Coal went from generating half of U.S. electricity to just 15% in two decades. 75 years of EIA data show how fast the American power grid is changing.
156 years of marriage and divorce in the United States
U.S. marriage rates have fallen 42% since the 1980s. A chart of 156 years of CDC marriage and divorce data, through the COVID-era record low.