November 8, 2012

London mapped with language

A professor specialising in spatial analysis at London’s UCL has produced a wonderful interactive map of London produced purely with a peppering of dots marking the locations individuals tweeted from over the past summer using different colours for different languages. It is both a beautiful demonstration of the ethnic diversity of a metropolitan city and a disquieting reminder of the trail of data that we leave behind us in the digital age.

To see the data overlaid over a map click here.

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

▸

7 min

—

with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

Up Next

Surprising Science

Using Robots To Help Children With Autism Learn

Preliminary results from a study done at a UK primary school with two humanoid robots show that these children respond better to the robots than to adults or to other children.