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Gapminder is a fascinating tool taking the concept of graphs several steps further by using computer multimedia.
The graph below is available online and shows the relationship between life expectancy and average individual income.
This graph instead of showing only the income vs expectancy data points also shows the geographical location (by the colour of the point) and the population (by the size of the point) of the country’s datapoint.So its easy to see that Africa has low income and associated low life expectancy and also that some have much lower life expectancies than the rough trend line. Labeling the points is revealing, Southern African countries amonst are those that lie below the line while Muslem countries suxh as Comores and Senegal are
Then one is able to look at these points in time to see changes and even track the changes as a line connecting successive years
or as a video, click on above and click play to watch how the points change.
Interesting thing about the African points Southern African countries seem to have lower than average life expectancies, while Muslim countries seem to be have higher than average. More interesting is the general increase in life expectancy in Muslim countries compared to the Botswana (decreased but now rising) and Swaziland and South Africa decreasing.
The unavoidable conclusion that this is in someway related to aids and clearly shows that the previous linking of aids to poverty is only a part of the story.
This Technical Bulletin from Practical Action gives details on drying, milling and packaging chillies.
The bulletin gives information on both solar drying which works well in dry weather and other dryers than can be used when the humidity is higher.
The article can be viewed in text format online and can be downloaded as a pdf document with pictures. To download one needs to register, but their is no charge.
The article includes the contact details of two dryer suppliers, but they are both in India. This is an issue I think we could try and address - the supply of up to date and more comprehensive lists of suppliers.
