Swedish academic Hans Rosling, a doctor and statistician who captured a worldwide audience with his witty style and original thinking on topics like population growth and development, has died at the age of 68.
With humor, lively graphics and an impassioned rhetorical style, Rosling used forums like online TED talks to influence public debate. In one typical example, he deployed a set of brightly colored plastic boxes from furniture store IKEA to illustrate demographic trends in the richest and poorest countries.