STAT-UP

01/07/2026

Messi and Mbappé are smashing the all-time football World Cup scoring record ⚽ :
19 - Leo Messi 🇦🇷 (2006-2026)
18 - Kylian Mbappé 🇫🇷 (2018-2026)
16 - Miroslav Klose 🇩🇪 (2002-2014)
15 - Ronaldo Nazário 🇧🇷 (1994-2006)
14 - Gerd Müller 🇩🇪 (1970-1974)
13 - Just Fontaine 🇫🇷 (1958)
12 - Pelé 🇧🇷 (1958-1970)

But we should take into account that nowadays players have more World Cup matches, for two reasons:
👉 Their careers are longer. (A fact which evidences this trend is that four players in this World Cup already were part of their national squad in the 2006 tournament, 20 years ago, while previously the maximum span, achieved by very few players, from their first to their last World Cup, was 16 years).
👉 Due to the format changes and the rising number of participants, the maximum number of matches a team can play in a tournament has been growing: While in the early ones it was only 4 or 5, after World War II it increased to 6, from 1974 onwards it was 7, and in this World Cup for the first time the semifinalists will play 8 matches.

The scatter plot shows the top scorers' number of goals in relation to the number of matches they played. The diagonal line represents one goal per match. Germany's Gerd Müller scored his 14 goals in just 13 matches across only two tournaments, while France's Just Fontaine even netted 13 goals in just 6 matches at one single World Cup - an incredible outlier! And his compatriot Kylian Mbappé averages a goal per game and, aged only 27, still has plenty of time to add to his tally...

Stay tuned to see the updated chart at the end of the World Cup! 😉

27/06/2026

An estimation on the death toll in European cities due to the heat wave, visualised by The Economist. It's worth analysing this information-rich chart, which represents four variables: average temperature and increase in risk of death on the axes (showing a clear positive correlation), population by the size of the bubbles, and region by colour.

For a given temperature, southern cities, which are generally more used to heat and better prepared, show a lower risk than northern or western cities. Considering that Milan, although Italian, is not really a southern city (it's more to the north than Toulouse), the two main exceptions are Barcelona and Rome, maybe partly due to the high humidity.

A link to the article, including an interactive version of the chart, in the comments.

14/03/2026

Today, 3-14, is π-day (≈3.14) or International Day of Mathematics. Below, a Monte Carlo simulation* to approximate the value of π, defined as the area of ​​the unit circle. In a uniformly distributed rain of grains falling on the square, whose area is 4, the proportion of grains falling inside the circle eventually approaches π/4, in accordance with the law of large numbers.
*Thanks to the author "Picanúmeros" https://linktr.ee/picanumeros.

08/03/2026

Happy ! In 2024, there were 7.9 million & in the , compared to 3.4 million in 2008, accounting for 40.5% of total employment in & , with huge geographical variations 👇 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/en/web/products-eurostat-news/w/edn-20260211-1

25/02/2026

In October 2024, (Spain) experienced rainfall accumulations in a few hours surpassing annual averages (up to 772 mm in 16 h in the official weather station at Turís), resulting in 230 fatalities. According to a climate attribution study published in Nature, human-induced
👉 intensified the 6-h rainfall rate by 21%,
👉 amplified the area with total rainfall above 180 mm by 55%,
👉 increased the volume of total rain within the Jucar River catchment by 19%,
compared to the pre-industrial era.

This study reveals how climate change altered storm dynamics during the 2024 Valencia floods. Warmer seas fueled stronger updrafts, increasing rainfall intensity by 20% and significantly amplifying flood severity.

19/02/2026

The Spanish National Institute and the Bank of Spain issue a (still experimental) tool to analyse the geographic distribution of economic activity in terms of employment, assets, sales, and gross operating profit of Spanish non-financial corporations, on a regional, provincial or municipal level, according to whether the headquarters or production centres are considered. It aims to facilitate the design of economic policies, the study of the interregional connections of companies domiciled in one area with productive establishments in others, or the evaluation of the economic impact of adverse phenomena that affect specific geographical areas, such as the 2024 floods in Valencia, on business activity.

INE. Instituto Nacional de Estadística. National Statistics Institute. Spanish Statistical Office. El INE elabora y distribuye estadisticas de Espana. Este servidor contiene: Censos de Poblacion y Viviendas 2001, Informacion general, Productos de difusion, Espana en cifras, Datos coyunturales, Dato...

14/01/2026

Almost half of consumption in 2024 came from - In 2004 it was less than a sixth. There are huge differences among member states. But how can the share be larger than 100% (e.g., 115% in Norway)?🤔

1) A country can generate more energy than it consumes, exporting part of it.

2) The actual renewable generation can differ from the one used to calculate the share, in which hydro and wind power are averaged over several years to smooth out the effects of meteorological variations.

11/12/2025

in the media: Unpacking , when we can't see the forest for the trees - The latest press article by Ansgar Seyfferth from our Madrid office in the column of the Spanish think tank Fundación Alternativas in infoLibre.

Los datos son fundamentales para entender nuestro mundo cada vez más complejo y muchos de ellos tienen un orden cronológico, describiendo una evo