VizWorld.com

Randy Krum of CoolInfographics turns up this interesting graphic of great historical epidemics spreading across the globe, including smallpox (blue), leprosy (red) and malaria (yellow).  While the origins of the infographic are a bit dubious, it’s an effective visualization that reminds me of the famous Napoleon March graph.

This world map shows the origins and spreading paths of Malaria, Leprosy and Small Pox. No legend, but the implication is that as the main arteries diminish in width down to small capillaries represents the number of infection cases. Key dates and locations are also identified with event description.

There is no designer byline on the graphic, but map is credited to Haisam Hussein. I don’t see the map in the gallery on Haisam’s website, but he is given credit for the map on Lapham’s Quarterly.

via Cool Infographics – Blog – The Origins and Paths of Epidemics.

Science biomed, infographic

The UN has just completed their most recent Human Development Indicators report and ranked all 182 countries, and created the graphic shown here of the Best place (Norway) and Worst place (Niger) to live.

The results of the report, showed that the most desirable place in the world to live, is Norway, while the least desirable is Niger.

Criteria examined in the report, included life expectancy, literacy rates, school enrolment and country economies.

The UN Development Programme said the index highlighted the grave disparities between rich and poor countries.

Now, without me tell you that, could you tell what that was?  At first I had it backwards, since the only thing I can read is that Niger is 182, and Norway is 1, but I don’t know what those numbers mean.  The rest is in a disaster of poor contrast, multidirectional text, and various font sizes that make it impossible to read. I still don’t know what the point is of the little people stuck inside the big people, other than to fill what would have been much welcome blank space.

via Human Development Indicators | GDS Publishing.

Graphics, Science bad, eu, infographic, un

In the wake of the Christmas airplane terror attacks, Gizmodo’s Jesus Diaz and Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com fame collaborated on a great infographic poster that compiles much of the data about airplane terror attacks.

After the crotchbomb there has been a lot of noise about airplane security again—you can see how stupid the leaked new flight rules are here. But what’s the actual risk of an airplane attack?

Some numbers to wet your appetite:

• Analyzing data from Oct 1999 to Sep 2009
• Over 99 Million Flights, traveling over 69 Billion miles.
• That’s one attack per 11.5 Billion miles
• or one attack per 3,105 years of air time

via The True Odds of Airborne Terror Chart – Odds of Airborne Attacks – Gizmodo.

Graphics, Science airport, infographic, safety

XKCD is back with another great infographic, this time demonstrating the power and strength of the various Gravity Wells associated with our solar system.

xkcd – A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language – By Randall Munroe.

Science infographic, xkcd

Theodore Gray, of Mathematica fame, has created a periodic table using pictures to actually show the elements. As you roll over the elements with your mouse, a picture of the element is shown along with details about the element, such as its atomic weight, density, melting point, boiling point, and uses. Some of the uses are quite funny. For example, for Einsteinium:

The most famous scientist of all time, Albert Einstein, obviously deserves to have an element named after him. Unfortunately his has a half-life of 472 days and no known applications. Better luck next time?

Want another laugh, try element 107, Bohrium. Want to buy it as a poster, card deck or place mat? You can buy it in their store. The one I want is the 3-D lenticular version.

Via PeriodicTable.com

Science infographic, molecular

People have scoured the exposed CRU emails and compiled all of them into a massive timeline covering 30 years of information contained within, presenting it as a huge PDF.

You have to see this to believe it. Look up close and admire the detail while you despair at how long science has been going off the rails. To better appreciate the past and what was exposed by the CRU emails, the time-line chart consolidates and chronologically organizes the information uncovered and published about the CRU emails by many researchers along with some related contextual events. That the chart exists at all is yet another example of how skilled experts are flocking in to the skeptics position and dedicating hours of time pro bono because they are passionately motivated to fight against those who try to deceive us.

via The Climategate Timeline: 30 years visualized « Watts Up With That?.

Science climate, climategate, infographic, popular, timeline

Ever wonder where the most profitable companies are in the world? Ever wonder how much money you would receive as a Christmas present if they gave you their profits? Well, BillShrink.com has a graphic just for you. Using data from 2008, they show that where the most profitable companies are located, and how much they made. It is no small surprise that oil companies take the top 6 spots, with ExxonMobile taking the top spot.

To see how much money you would get from ExxonMobile’s profit if they gave it to everyone on Earth, click through to BillShrink.com

Science BillShrink, infographic

Recently, Jeff Heard was approached to convert a 3D Excel Spreadsheet into something more understandable, and allow comparison of columns for balance, comparison of third dimension alternates, comparison of rows for balance, and comparison of overall sums.  His solution (shown) : Radial Bar Charts.

Along the ring are the names of the columns of data in the spreadsheet. On each spoke are the rows in the two layers of the spreadsheet visualized as bar charts. Stretching counterclockwise are the bars for senior faculty. Stretching clockwise are the bars for graduate research assistants. In the center, visualized as bubbles of varying radii are the totals from both bar charts along the spoke. Note the light, thin rings connecting each bar. These are designed to draw a viewer’s eye around the chart, connecting bar to bar visually to inform the viewer that comparison is relevant.

Personally, I find the chart borderline incomprehensible.  Now, Jeff had limited time (only 5 days) and a rather impressive collection of requirements to meet, but the resulting chart seems to breakdown in several ways:

• Too much data
• Use of Circles to compare size.
• Rotated fonts.. Anytime you have to write letters & numbers upside-down, you’ve done something wrong
• Bar Lengths – are they radial? or length-based? eg, do the outer rings have a different scale than the inner rings?  It seems they are radial.  Look at the upper right section “Operations/Facilities”, and look at the inner dark-green bar valued 0.2, and a few bars up you see 0.18 .. The 0.18 bar appears larger than the 0.2, while it should be smaller.

For an example, quickly try to find the Graduate FTE’s in Research Department 2.   The Answer? 0.50 (I think, like I said it’s hard to read).

What do you think?  They say hindsight is 20/20, so how would you improve it?

via Radial Bar Charts | Hieroglyphics.

Science bad, infographic

BibliOdyssey has compiled a huge list of classic Victorian-era infographics including insect collections, astronomical charts, time differences, and (shown right) this impressive chart of Human History.

This is a fold-out print depicting all of human history from the time of creation (4693 BC = Adam & Eve; the great flood = 3300 BC) up to the date of publication (1858 by Eug. Pick, Paris). Vignettes of historically significant people, places and buildings etc are arranged along the borders.

This audacious document mirrors the style of a similar graphical print by Colton from 1842 [I don't think it's online] and is in the same ballpark as an 1836 chart by Emma Willard (see here).

The designer has employed something of a metaphorical display choice: civilisations are presented as a series of rivers — the widths likely imply the comparative population level of each group versus the world’s population — which ‘flow’ down through history.

See them all in much higher resolution on his site and Flickr.

via BibliOdyssey: Victorian Infographics.

Graphics, Science history, infographic, list

GOOD Magazine collaborated with Frank Chimero to create a new “Transparency” all about the US Penal System and how it stacks up against other US endeavors and other country’s penal systems.

There are currently more than 2.3 million people incarcerated in the United States. What does that look like, exactly? That’s equivalent to putting the combined populations of Miami, Las Vegas, and Minneapolis behind bars. Why is our penal system broken? How do we stack up against other countries? We take a closer look at prisons in our latest Transparency.

See the video after the break.

Read more…

Graphics good, infographic, video