Data Is Plural

Faster-turnaround mortality data. Last week, the CDC began publishing provisional US mortality statistics for 2018 to the near-present. The data are based on death certificates and can be queried by location, timing, demographics, and causes of death. They’re similar to the CDC’s non-provisional statistics for earlier years, but “with a lag of just a few weeks” instead of more than a year, writes the COVID-19 Data Dispatch’s Betsy Ladyzhets. Read more: “Researchers say the US is undercounting COVID deaths. Now we have a tool to figure out why,” an article by Ladyzhets and other members of Documenting COVID-19, who are hosting a webinar about the data today.

Zero-day exploits. Researchers at Google’s Project Zero study “zero-day” vulnerabilities — software flaws discovered by hackers before they can be fixed. Since 2019, the team has published a spreadsheet of known zero-day exploits “in the wild.” The spreadsheet’s 200 entries go back to 2014 and note the software product, its vendor, the flaw’s type and description, date discovered, date patched, and more. Previously: The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures list (DIP 2018.12.12). [h/t Patrick Howell O’Neill + Bruce Schneier]

Reproductive assistance in the EU. Reporters at Civio have collected data on the access to, and availability of financial aid for, in vitro fertilization and artificial insemination in 43 European countries, noting limits based on age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, and other factors. Read more: “More than half of European countries prohibit access to assisted reproduction for lesbians and almost a third do so for single women.” Related: Civio’s visualization code in Observable notebooks. [h/t Olaya Argüeso Pérez + Mike Freeman]

Country leaders’ birthplaces. Axel Dreher et al.’s Political Leaders’ Affiliation Database lists the birthplaces and ethnicities of 1,109 leaders of 177 countries between 1989 and 2020. The birthplaces are described at several levels of administrative detail and are ascribed a latitude, longitude, and an indication of those coordinates’ precision. The ethnicities are drawn from external, linked sources. [h/t Simon Heß]

1 million Bandcamp sales. Components’ Andrew Thompson has published a dataset of 1,000,000 sales on the music platform Bandcamp during a few weeks in late 2020. For each sale, it includes the item’s description, price, and type; the buyer’s country; a timestamp; and more. It’s a slice of the data used in “The Chaos Bazaar: An analysis of Bandcamp sales, 9/1/2020 - 12/31/2020.”