Speaking of gaps...
Some time back I wrote about Edward Tufte's quest to present quantitative data in a striking visual format. Gapminder takes his call to heart. Look in particular at the presentation "Has the World Become a Better Place?"
And if that's not enough, there's a great video of the founder of Gapminder, Professor Hans Rosling, speaking at the February 2006 Technology, Entertainment and Design Conference. He gets so amped up over what he's presenting that at one point the audience breaks out in spontaneous applause. The video's also pretty funny at the start where he pokes fun at the general level of knowledge about global heath. I'd suggest you watch the video first, then take a look at Gapminder itself.
"The problem is not ignorance, it's preconceived ideas..." Hans Rosling
