Tag: science

  • Frack You, Gas Hole.

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    And not in the polite Galactica way, but more in the let’s drill you, rocks, and split you open. I could go in further detail about the injection of fracking fluids, but let’s leave the double entendre alone and talk about Marcellus Shale. It’s a layer of rocks in the dirt that contain natural gas.…

  • A Nine-story Log Cabin

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    Brendan Barry
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    It’s like a log cabin. But taller. A lot taller. The New York Times reports with an infographic on a nine-story block of flats (apartment building for us Americans) in London called the Graphite Apartments that was built almost entirely of timber. Credit for the piece goes to Mika Gröndahl.

  • The Golden Gate Turns 75. Time for Gravity Assisted Suicide.

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    Brendan Barry
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    A few days ago the Golden Gate Bridge turned 75. I had been hoping to see an interesting infographic or two about the bridge and its history appear. Alas, none worthy of posting have made their way to my digital desk. So instead I am stepping into the time machine, really just a cardboard box…

  • New York Times Lies About Science

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    Brendan Barry
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    In a rare infographic misstep, the New York Times published an incorrect diagram detailing the centre of the Earth. Clearly, anyone who knows anything about science knows that it is not a solid core of iron at the centre of the Earth, but dinosaurs. And I see no dinosaurs in this diagram. Credit for the…

  • Visualising Panda Mating

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Animals need to reproduce. Well, except perhaps some of our own species…and so today’s infographic from the Washington Post looks at the birds and the bees. Or rather the pandas and the pandas. Or is that the pandas on pandas? Regardless, the reader can see that panda mating is not easy. Credit for the piece…

  • How an E-mail is Sent. (And No, I Don’t Mean by Pressing Send.)

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Google is a big company. What do big companies do from time to time? Market themselves. And so this is a screenshot from a fun interactive infographic piece that has supplementals from text to photos to videos as Google explains how an e-mail is sent. All the while Google touts its green energy initiatives and…

  • Canada Invades the Land of the Mole People

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Subways. Home of the mole people. And in the United States an unwanted recipient of government money to build things. Along with being generally unwanted. By those who do not live in cities. Probably because of said mole people. Or something. But in Canada, they like subways. At least enough that Toronto is building an…

  • Nope, It’s Just Clouds in the Shapes of Birds and Planes.

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    Brendan Barry
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    Supporting an article about how the clouds are the last great hope for the climate change skeptics, the New York Times published an interesting infographic that looks at cloud cover and insolation, the amount of solar energy that irradiates the planet. The main feature is an animation of a year’s worth of cloud cover. The…

  • Analysing the Urban Environment

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    Brendan Barry
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    Via the Guardian comes an interactive piece from researchers at MIT and the Technical University of Lisbon that allows users to examine urban environments to compare population, energy use, and building material intensity for a select set of 42 different cities. The screenshots below are of neighbourhoods in Philadelphia. Once the user has chosen an…

  • It’s Neither a Bird Nor a Plane. It’s a Space Shuttle. On Top of a Plane.

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    I loved the space shuttle. I mean how awesome is it that the lead ship of the class is named after the Enterprise from Star Trek. But seriously, it was a brick with little stub wings for gliding. It was not meant for flying. So now that all the shuttles are all retired—that’s a whole…