We are visual beings: Our perception of the world is intrinsically tied to our ability to perceive light. But what about the places where light doesn’t fall? Do places in shadow still encode information for the visual cortex to process? Can shadows actually tell us something meaningful about the landscapes they darken?
There are thousands of ships sailing the seas to catch the fish you eat, and now you can watch them sail the ocean in almost real-time on this interactive map
We just had the warmest August on record, which also tied last month for the warmest month ever recorded. But it’s the overall trend that’s truly scary, and now you can watch it unfold right before your eyes.
We’re in the midst of a long, sustained drought that’s been unfolding for the past several years. But just how hard has that drought hit in different parts of the United States? This maps shows exactly.
A new visualization of US Census Bureau data reveals—in soothingly colorful bars and interactive key metrics—that married people are the weird ones. And you’d be surprised how many Americans get married at 15.
We know our food is incredibly well traveled, but just where does your food come from? A new set of interactive charts help you trace the often serpentine route from farm to table.
Climate change is real, it’s happening right now, and it’s pushing us into an increasingly grim-looking future. Still don’t believe it? Take a look at this graph.
As a kid I spent a lot of time on the Maryland shore. Squinting out across the endless blue expanse, I could have sworn I saw the edge of Portugal once or twice. I was shocked recently to learn that my childhood imagination had it all wrong. (Truly, a first.) With telescopic vision, I wouldn’t see the coast of Europe.…
Inspired by the confirmation of gravitational waves, British composer Arthur Jeffes has taken data from the LIGO experiment and set it to music. Without a doubt, these billion-year-old ripples coursing through the fabric of spacetime never sounded so good.
The Star Wars expanded universe is huge. Really huge. Like, you just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly huge it really is. To grasp the full extent of this hugeness, a team of data scientists used a new computer program to analyze it, revealing some unexpected things about the extended saga.
If you have’t taken a moment to appreciate the fact that hundreds of Earth-orbiting satellites are photographing our planet right now, and that this is a goddamn technological wonder, here’s your opportunity.
Perhaps the best way to prove that the US is indeed a country of immigrants is to watch the data speak for itself in this beautiful interactive map.
Statistics about traffic fatalities don’t always have the power to shock most people. Huge numbers–like 373,377, the number of people who died in traffic between 2004 and 2013, for example–are difficult for our brains to really comprehend.
Whether you’re a bird lover or a data fiend, this poster will please you immensely.
You can’t fit much information about yourself on a postcard... if you insist on writing it out in words like a weakling. Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Prosavec, two friends on separate continents who both work in data-driven design, have a more efficient method. For their project Dear Data, Lupi and Prosavec have spent…
Thanks to Obama’s Clean Power Plan announced earlier this week, each state in the US has been charged with plotting a way to a cleaner energy future. While the goal for the entire country is to reduce carbon emissions from power plants by a third by 2030, as you can see from this map, some states are already getting…
Most of us know that “the” is the most common word in the English language. But what are some other high-frequency words, both long and short? This amazing animated data bubble visualization by Abacaba provides the answers.
The remaining 90%, of course, inhabit the regions colored white. (That’s how math works!)
If the world were mapped according to how many scientific research papers each country produced, it would take on a rather bizarre, uneven appearance. This image makes a dramatic point about the complexities of global inequalities in knowledge production and exchange. So what is driving this inequality and how can it…
This visualization by drwtsn breaks down the nuclear arms race starting from the 1940s until now. The countries shown are the countries who have historically had the most nuclear weapons: the US, Russia, the UK, France and China (a few other countries have nukes too but are not represented).
