The Information Diet

Vitamin C, Potassium and Fiber Per Fruit

2011-12-29T16:14:00.001-08:00

Each point refers to a 100 g serving of the fresh fruit, the daily recommended allowance of vitamin C is on the X axis and mg of Potassium (K) on the Y (offset by 100 mg which every fruit has) and the size of the disk represents amount of fiber (key in upper right). Oranges and bananas have the highest amount of fiber and are also furthest away from the bottom left indicating their superior nutrition. Watermelon which has almost no fiber and low levels of vitamin C and potassium comes in last place.

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Average Penis Length Per Country

2011-12-29T06:59:00.000-08:00

This site has alot of interesting information, I suggest you look around, although I'm skeptical of the credibility of the source. Regardless, the chart above compares the average penis length per country. Data from men self reporting their value compared to an official measure is highlighted in red. Another interesting data point would be to normalize length by average height but this task is left up to the reader.

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Oil Consumption Per Capita Per Country

2011-12-27T20:06:00.001-08:00

Saudi Arabia (population of about 25 million people) and Singapore (population 5 million), uses more oil per person than any other country in the world with at least 1 million people. These countries are followed by the United States, Canada and Finland. Some surprises such as Libya and Australia burn more oil per person than most of the countries in Western Europe.

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Lifelines of the Greatest Musical Composers

2011-12-27T10:36:00.000-08:00

This chart compares the lifetimes of some of the greatest classical musical composers and also indicates influence: Joseph Haydn taught Beethoven and was close friends with Mozart. Chopin and Tchaikovsky are the only members that were not born in Germany or Austria. Did you like the old image better?

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Ad Spending Over Time Per Media in Millions of Dollars

2011-12-23T05:11:00.000-08:00

There is a nice dataset that contains total spending per media per year. The above chart shows spending per year for a subset of media, roughly normalized by a devalued dollar. There are some comparable chunks of media that I did not include in this chart, namely "direct mail" and "yellow pages", I mean are these channels really still effective. There are a few things that really surprise me about this graph such as the large amount of advertising that is spent on newspapers and television compared to the relatively small amount spent directly on the internet. With behavioral and demographic targeting available as well as most newspapers and television being available online, there is surely a shift still waiting to happen?

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The Largest Moons in the Solar System

2011-12-22T09:04:00.000-08:00

This graphic displays the relative sizes of all the planetary satellites found in the solar system over 1000 km in diameter. Jupiter's four largest moons as well as Saturn's Triton have diameter's larger than the Earth's moon.

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Life Expectancy Per Country

2011-12-21T06:34:00.001-08:00

Most of Western Europe, Australia and Japan have a life expectancy in the high 70s over even over 80. The U.S. is not far behind and then China, most of South America and select countries in Northern Africa. Countries in central and southern Africa as well as Afghanistan have life expectancies well below 50.

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Animal Brain Mass vs. Body Mass

2011-12-20T07:11:00.000-08:00

The encephalization quotient is a metric reflective of the distance from the expected size of brain for a given species. As the size of a species increases, the size of the brain should increase accordingly to handle the increased load in managing bodily functions. While other factors like neuronal density play a significant role, it is believed that excess mass is dedicated to higher level cognition. Humans have an encephalization quotient over 7 which is nearly double their closest rival, the bottlenose dolphin. This is a guest post by Jerod. Did you like the old image better?.

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A History of Quantum Mechanics

2011-12-19T13:56:00.001-08:00

Scientific revolutions come without warning and burst through the traditionally held worldview with force. Quantum mechanics may be one of the most significant scientific revolutions in the history of mankind: it shifted the world view of physicists and chemists from the the classical world of predictability to the uncertain worlds of statistical probabilities. The timeline above compares the lifetimes of some of the greatest contributors to the theory of quantum mechanics and points in their life are mark their most significant discoveries.

Distribution of Price Points for Radiohead's "In Rainbows" Sales

2011-12-16T10:20:00.000-08:00

In October of 2007 Radiohead released their 7th album as a digital download to customers for whatever price they wanted to pay (including 0$). This graphic shows the breakdown in price points chosen for the download and the resulting breakdown in revenue from those price points. About 60% of downloaders obtained the album for 0$, about 1/3 spent between 0 and 12$ on the album. About 50% of the revenue from the album sales was generated the 10% of downloaders that paid between 8 and 12$.

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Average Length of Day Per Lattitude

2011-12-15T12:51:00.000-08:00

Following horizontally indicates the length of day for that latitude. For example New York at 40 degrees north and San Francisco at 37 degrees north places these cities above the 30 degree horizontal. Moving from left to right at this vertical shows that daylight hours during the Winter Solstice are around 9 hours and increase to about 15 hours during the summer solstice. The latitude of St. Petersburg is nearly 60 degrees experiences about 6 hours of daylight in the winter and 18 in the summer.

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Seasonality of California Grown Fruit

2011-12-14T07:30:00.000-08:00

Most fruit, including berries and drupes (apricots, peaches, plums) becomes available in the spring and lasts through most of the summer. There are also the fall fruits which include grapes, apples, pears and pomegranates. Persimmons, grapefruit and kiwis are some of the only fruits that are suitable for the winter months.

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Exoplanets Discovered Per Year

2011-12-13T07:37:00.000-08:00

The search for planets outside of our own solar system has seen a healthy increase, rising to over 80 confirmed exoplanets discovered in 2010. Most planets are discovered not by sight, but indirect methods such as orbital velocimetry which measures the small wiggle of the star as the planet orbits around it or transit in which a small shadow cast by the planet passing in front of the star is detected. The Kepler spacecraft launched in 2009, released its first results indicating an additional 1235 planetary candidates for 2011. In the upcoming months, the team will spend time verifying all of these candidates, including Kepler 22, one of the most Earthlike planets ever discovered.

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Percentage of Citizens Using the Internet Per Country

2011-12-12T07:18:00.000-08:00

Nearly 80% of Americans use the internet. The same is true for Canada, Australia and most of Europe. It is about 30% for other large countries like Russia and Brazil and China is just shy of 20%. For most African countries less than 10% of its citizens use the internet.

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Music Tracks (in Millions) Purchased Per Medium Over Time

2011-12-09T14:20:00.000-08:00

Music distribution format has changed every decade. Vinyl in the 70s, cassettes in the 80s, CDs in the 90s and Downloads for the first decade on 2000. Its difficult to compare sale volume from each of these medium because of the different sizes of the packages they come in. While 2% of all CD sales were singles (v. 98 % album), 10% of cassettes sold were singles, 35% of vinyl and 95% of downloads. The Recording industry of America provides data on total sales per single and album per medium. This chart uses that data to estimate total song tracks purchased (in millions of tracks) per medium per year. I assumed 10 tracks on a CD and Cassette album and 8 on an 8 Track and LP / EP. The music industry was at its strongest in the late 90s as CDs trumped Vinyl and Cassette formats to become the most successful musical medium of all time. Napster was born around the turn of the century, signifying the beginning of the downfall for musical sales across all media, including single track downloads. Sorry the old image was not correct.

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The Most Liked Pages on Facebook.

2011-12-07T20:11:00.000-08:00

Its's a little suspicious that Facebook is the most liked page on Facebook. Hmm. The green bars indicate pages that closely resemble real human beings.

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Breakdown of Elements by Mass in the Human Body

2011-12-07T15:35:00.000-08:00

The human body is composed of nearly 2/3 Oxygen atoms by mass and another 18% Carbon by mass. Hydrogen makes up 10% of the human body and another 5% consists of Nitrogen, Calcium and Phosphorous.

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Atomic Radius in Picometers Per Element

2011-12-06T08:05:00.000-08:00

Since electrons are represented as probability clouds around the nucleus, the atomic radius is an approximate value of the average distance the electrons are from the origin. Plotting the size of the atomic radius versus atomic number shows a clear structure: there are sets of decreasing values separated by large increases to the next set. These sets are exactly the rows in the periodic table and also represent the shells or possible resonances with the atom. The decrease with increasing atomic number within the same shell is attributed to the increased attraction from the nucleus each electron feels which is counterbalanced slightly by electron shielding.

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Carbon Dioxide PPM Over Time From Vostok Ice Core

2011-12-05T07:09:00.000-08:00

Vostok ice cores trap bubbles of atmosphere from hundreds of thousands of years ago, providing a historical record of the changes in carbon dioxide levels (and resultant temperature levels) over time. In the past 400,000 years, the Vostok ice cores indicate four peaks and subsequent valleys indicating the ice ages that have occurred during this time period. The most recent records in the Vostok ice cores at at values under 300 parts per million (ppm). For comparison, in July 2011 Mauna Loa recorded carbon dioxide levels at 392 ppm.

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Cosmologist Timeline

2011-12-02T09:52:00.000-08:00

Modern cosmology really began with Nicolaus Copernicus's bold proposal that the sun was at the center of the universe. Following many great discoveries and insights, it was only at the height of Isaac Newton's career when he connected earthly gravity with heavenly gravity.

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World Record Progression of 100 meter Dash

2011-12-01T15:00:00.000-08:00

The world record for the men's 100m world record has dropped by over 1 second since it was first recorded over 100 years ago. In 2008 the world record dropped most rapidly from 9.74 to 9.58 in three events, each of which were attributed to Usain Bolt.

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Average Height of American Boys and Girls in Feet vs. Age

2011-11-30T07:44:00.000-08:00

American boys and girls are nearly the same height in the first 10 years of their life with boys having less than a one inch lead. At around 10.5 years, girls begin to grow faster and become taller than boys by over an inch. A boy's growth spurt occurs around 12.5 years and by 13.5 years boys again overtake girls (who have mostly stopped growing taller). Boys continue to grow taller past the age of 15 and average over 5 inches taller than girls by the time they are 18.

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My Dad's Chili

2011-11-29T08:27:00.000-08:00

U.S. Soldier Deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan per Year

2011-11-28T06:57:00.000-08:00

The number of U.S. soldier deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan closely follow the troop levels for the corresponding year. Over 800 soldiers died per year from 2004-2007 while about 100 died in Afghanistan in the same time. Deaths in Afghanistan have reached 400 in 2011 nearing the largest year for deaths in 2010 when there were nearly 500.

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The Sizes of the the Planets

2011-11-23T09:15:00.000-08:00

Jupiter is the larget planet in our solar system with a diameter over 11 times the Earth's. This is followed by the other gas giants: Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Pluto (yes I still consider it a planet) has a diameter about a fifth the size of the Earth. Did you like the old image better?

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Incarceration Rate Per Country

2011-11-22T08:04:00.001-08:00

For every 100,000 people in the United States, over 700 of them are in prison. This is the highest incarceration rate in the world, over 20% higher than the second ranked country, Russia. The average across Europe as well as Canada and Australia have incarceration rates at about 0.1.

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U.S. Troop Levels in Iraq and Afghanistan Per Year

2011-11-21T16:55:00.000-08:00

U.S. troop levels in Iraq have maintained values near 150 thousand from 2004 to 2008, before descending in 2009. This is in contrast to Afghanistan where troop levels increased more slowly year over year. U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan are expected to be about 65 thousand in 2011 compared to about 45 thousand in Iraq, foreshadowing the end of the Iraq war by the end of the year. Did you like the old image better?

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Racial Breakdown of Biggest U.S. Cities

2011-11-19T08:00:00.000-08:00

Miami has the largest fraction of white people. San Francisco has the most asian. Chicago has the most black people. New York has the most other (primarily latino). Did you like the old image better?

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Sunspots Per Month Over Time

2011-11-17T07:29:00.000-08:00

A sunspot is a region of intense magnetic activity on the sun that cools the area from about 6000K to 4000K resulting in a visibly darker spot. This chart shows the number of sunspots counted per month since 1900. Sunspot intensity varies on an 11 year cycle due to the switching of the sun's magnetic field. In 2010 we witnessed one of the most eerily silent time periods of solar activity when sunspots were non existent for many months.

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Probability Distribution of Song Length in a Collection of Itunes Libraries

2011-11-16T07:09:00.000-08:00

itunes.xml files contain alot of interesting metadata about songs. The distribution shows the relative likelihood of the length of a song. This plot was calculated from over 70,000 songs from 12 (American) libraries. The median of this plot is 231 seconds ans the mean is at 242 seconds. This observation may indicate something fundamental about people(culturally or biologically): we like songs that are almost exactly 4 minutes. As you move away from the 4 minute mark, the probability drops in similar amounts (the plot is symmetric-ish).

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The Top 20 MLB Total Strikeout Leaders

2011-11-15T07:38:00.000-08:00

Pictured above are the top 20 all time MLB strikeout leaders. Their x position is their average earned runs per game (E.R.A.) and the y axis is their average strikeouts per game (S.P.G.). In other words the top left hand corner indicates the "best" : many strikeouts per game without many runs given up. The size of the circle indicates the number of innings pitched to perform this strikeout feat (with 3000 innings subtracted out which every pitcher surpassed). In this context, the smaller the circle the faster it took them to achieve their position on the top 20 list. A larger circle (read: Cy Young) indicates longevity and consistency but less domination. Nolan Ryan is considered to be the best strikeout pitcher with a commanding 5714 v. 4875 lead on total strikeouts against his front runner, Randy Johnson. However, Randy did it in a shorter time period (smaller circle) while maintaining an additional strikeout per game (10.6 v. 9.5) compared to Nolan.

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Vietnamese Steamed Fish

2011-11-14T07:52:00.000-08:00

My father in law taught me this recipe. A catfish is usually the fish of choice.

A Breakdown of the World's Religions

2011-11-11T08:17:00.000-08:00

About 1/3 of all human beings are Christian. The Christian and the Islamic faith together make up most of the human race, while those that refer to themselves as 'non religious' make up over 15%. Buddhism makes up about 5% and Judaism comes in well below 1%.

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Most Prescribed Drugs in the U.S.

2011-11-10T05:40:00.000-08:00

The pain killer Vicodin is the most prescribed drug in the U.S. with over 130 million prescriptions made last year. The drugs highlighted in yellow indicate treatment of ailments related to the heart and circulatory system (either high blood pressure or high cholesterol). While Prilosec is used to treat acid reflux, Amoxicillin and Zithromax are both treatments for bacterial infections.

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30 Year Fixed Mortgage Rate Over Time

2011-11-09T07:46:00.000-08:00

The 30 year fixed mortgage rate has been dropping consistently since a high of well over 10% in the early 1980s. Today, the rate stands at just above 4%.

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Marathon World Record Progression

2011-11-08T11:19:00.000-08:00

World record time to complete the marathon has dropped almost an hour from the records recorded in the early 20th century. The current world record stands at 2 hours 3 minutes and 38 seconds set by Patrick Makau in Berlin on September 25 2011.

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Time and Frequency of the Largest Meteor Showers of the Year

2011-11-04T11:20:00.000-07:00

Meteor showers occur when the Earth passes through a cloud of debris floating through space, usually from the remnants of comet. Meteor showers occur on a very predictable basis at nearly the same date range every year. The graphic above indicates the days of the year and the potential volume (meteors per hour) that can be observed. Although it is difficult to predict the volume of each shower due to the spatial variance in cloud debris, at peak rates the Geminids and the Quadrantids offer some of the greatest opportunities to see shooting stars.

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Browser Usage Over Time

2011-11-03T08:18:00.000-07:00

In 2003 Microsoft's Internet Explorer dominated the browser market, owning over 90% of all browser real estate. Since then IE has experienced a steady decline while being over taken by Mozilla/Firefox and more recently Chrome. We can extrapolate these trends to assume that in 3 years, IE will have a negligible market share and Chrome will own the majority.

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Frequency of Earthquakes Per Year vs. Seismic Energy Yield

2011-11-02T07:59:00.000-07:00

Earthquakes per 'magnitude' are plotted against the total number of occurrences per year across the planet on the vertical scale. The horizontal scale is the equivalent seismic energy for that magnitude earthquake. For example, more than 100 thousand earthquakes around a magnitude 3.0 occur every year, compared to a few hundred earthquakes of magnitude 6.0. Earthquakes of magnitudes nearing 9.0 occur less than every year (every ~10 years). The linear relationship between frequency and energy of the quake is one of the classic examples of power law distributions referred to as the Gutenberg-Richter law.

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Millions of Facebook Users Over Time

2011-11-01T07:32:00.000-07:00

When Facebook was first available for anyone in the United States to join, in April 2007, it had about 20 million active users. Since then Facebook has grown to over 800 million active users about half of which log on to Facebook on any given day.

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U.S. Physics Ph.D.s Granted Per Year

2011-10-31T11:02:00.000-07:00

Ph.D.s in physics granted per year sky rocketed from less than 200 during WWII to over 1000 by 1967. At this time only 15% of physics Ph.D.s granted in the U.S. were temporary residents. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, foreign born recipients grew significantly. In 2009 over 50% of physics Ph.D.s were awarded to non U.S. citizens.

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Lifetimes of Modern Artists

2011-10-27T21:57:00.000-07:00

This graphic shows the lifetime of some of the most influential modern artists. Red is a loose indicator of residence in Europe (including Russia for Kandinsky) while blue indicates residence in the United States. Georgia O'Keefe and Mark Rothko (who was born in Russia but moved to the United States when still a child) can be given gredit for contributing to the shift from Europe to the United States.

Mile Run World Record Progression

2011-10-27T07:58:00.000-07:00

World record time to complete the mile run has dropped almost an entire minute from the earliest record set in 1855 by Charles Westhall with a time of 4:28. The current world record stands at 3:43 by Hicham El Guerrouj in 1999.

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Minerals and Calories Per Vegetable

2011-10-26T07:37:00.000-07:00

Each circle represents a vegetable, the horizontal axis corresponds to the fraction of daily allowance for Calcium (Ca) for a 100 g serving while the vertical axis represents daily allowance for Iron (Fe). The size of the circle indicates the number of calories with a key in the upper right hand section. Asparagus have the most Fe per serving while broccoli has the most Ca. Butterhead lettuce has an above average amount of both Fe and Ca per serving while having a very low level of calories. Green peppers, on the other hand, have the lowest levels of both Ca and Fe.

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Total Walmarts Opened in the U.S. Over Time

2011-10-25T07:17:00.000-07:00

The first Walmart opened on July 1, 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas. Since then, over 3,000 Walmart stores have opened across the nation, averaging over 100 new stores per year. Today, Walmart stores exist in every state in the country as well as thousands more in Mexico, the United Kingdom, Japan and India.

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Density of the Asteroid Belt

2011-10-24T07:54:00.000-07:00

This chart shows the number of known asteroids within the asteroid belt as a function of the distance in astronomical units (multiples of distance from the Earth to the sun). This collection of asteroids is balanced by Mars at approximately 1.5 AU and Jupiter at a distance of about 5.5 AU. The gaps in the asteroid density are referred to as Kirkwood gaps and correspond to unstable resonances with Jupiter's orbital period.

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The Perfect Salad

2011-10-21T08:23:00.001-07:00

A template for the perfect salad, you can still fill in the details. For example, leafy things: arugula, cheese: blue, nuts: walnuts, fruit: dried cherries. Always delicious.

Total Waste Discarded and Recycled in America Per Year in Millions of Tons

2011-10-20T07:58:00.000-07:00

Following WWII, waste production in America steadily increased without much emphasis on recycling and conservation. In the mid 1980s an initiative began to recycle more of the waste produced and by the mid 2000s nearly one third of all waste produced in the U.S. was recycled. This increased emphasis on recycling did not immediately deter overall waste production: 2009 saw the first decrease in total waste production (discard and recycled). Did you like the old image better?

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Birth Rate Fraction Per Country

2011-10-19T07:47:00.000-07:00

The birth rate fraction is in units of "people per person per year". Multiplying it by life expectancy and infant mortality rate can provide an estimate of population growth. The birth rate fraction of the United States is just over 0.01 compared to Mali or Afghanistan's values of near 0.05.

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The Earth's Atmosphere

2011-10-18T07:54:00.000-07:00

The Earth's atmosphere can be broken down into four major pieces. The troposphere extends more than 10 km from the Earth's surface and contains most of the clouds and weather activity that we are familiar with. The stratosphere is the next section and is identified by a steady increase in temperature for increasing altitudes. The ozone layer also lives in the stratosphere. The mesosphere exists roughly between 50 and 90 km and is characterized by a decrease in temperature for increasing altitudes.

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Recent History of the Flu

2011-10-17T07:49:00.000-07:00

Google flu trends measures the search terms correlated with flu season to provide an early detection system of flu outbreaks around the world. The above chart shows the relative counts of these terms worldwide. Generally, flu season breaks right around the new year, although outbreaks just before (November) and after (March) are also common. The 2009 Swine Pandemic was a notable time in recent flu history when summer months indicated above normal activity and the peak occurring in November of 2009 was the largest peak in recent history.

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World Population Breakdown

2011-10-14T07:35:00.000-07:00

The area of each circle indicates the relative population per continental region. The pie slice of each area indicates what fraction of the total population is from the most populated country on that continent. At nearly 3.1 billion people, Asia makes up almost half of the total world population of 6.7 billion.

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Mattress Sizes

2011-10-12T20:53:00.001-07:00

The traditional double size mattress standard among English speaking countries is based on the imperial measurement of 54 inches wide by 75 inches long. The queen and king size mattress run at 80 inches long while the california king runs 84 inches. Did you like the old image better?

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Seating Capacity Per NBA Arena

2011-10-12T07:22:00.000-07:00

The average NBA arena today can seat about 20,000 people. While The Palace of Auburn Hills, home of the Detroit Pistons, can seat over 22,000 fans, the New Orleans Arena, home of the Hornets, can seat only 17,000.

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Time Vs. Distance in Human Locomotion World Records

2011-10-11T07:22:00.000-07:00

This graphic shows the world records for humans in seconds for distances between 100 meter and 270 K meters (24 hour run). You can almost fit the data to a straight line on a log log plot: starting with the 100 m race, record held by Usain Bolt, for every order of magnitude increase in distance, there is a corresponding order of magnitude increase in time. This results in a slowly decreasing average speed as a function of distance: rougly 10 m/s at the shortest distance and tending below 6 m/s at the marathon level.

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Average Volatility for the S&P 500 Per Month

2011-10-10T07:02:00.001-07:00

It has been noted that October has seen some of the largest single day drops in stock prices (remember October 15, 2008) as well as some of the largest increases. The average volatility ((high-low)/average) per month for the S&P 500 calculated between 1950 and 2011 is shown above. For most of the year, the volatility is rather constant, dropping slightly between the beginning of the year and summer months. But as fall approaches, volatility hits a peak, likely around early November, before descending down to its lowest point at the end of the year. Whether this is due to the uncertainty of the fall harvest or approach of the Christmas shopping season remains debatable.

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Elmo vs. Big Bird: No Contest

2011-10-07T08:20:00.000-07:00

In 2007 nearly 1 million Fisher Price toys made in China were recalled due mainly to lead paint. Of these toys, most of them were Sesame Street toys and one dad counted the frequency with which each character appeared in the toys. Elmo, by far, steal the show appearing in 37% of all toys while Ernie and the Cookie Monster are tied for a distant second. Big Bird sadly made up only 5% of all toys.

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Export Network

2011-10-06T08:17:00.000-07:00

The network shown here is the flipside of the import network shown a few weeks ago. In this case we show to what destination country is the largest consumer of goods from each source country. Japan and China are the largest importer to a few Asian countries while there is also a strong export relationship between the E.U. and the U.S. among many satellite countries.

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NASA Spending as Percent of Total Federal Budget

2011-10-05T06:25:00.000-07:00

Soon after the establishment of NASA in 1958, U.S. Federal spending for the organization rose to nearly 5% of total federal spending. This allocation was mainly directed toward the Apollo moon missions. Spending dropped to less than 1% by the mid 1970s and is currently less than 0.5% as the U.S. government looks to private industries to pick up the slack.

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Breakdown of Animal Species

2011-10-04T07:12:00.000-07:00

There are over 1 million known animal species, nearly 75% of which are insects. Vertebrates, on the other hand, which include fish, birds, reptiles and mammals contribute just over 5% or about 60,000 known species.

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Number of Ratings vs. Average Rating Per Netflix Movie Rater

2011-10-02T15:31:00.000-07:00

Each point on this scatter plot represents one of 17,000 users that Netflix presented data for the Netflix competition. The vertical axis is the total number of ratings for that user and the horizontal axis is the average rating that user provides. For the users that don't rate that often (10^2), their distribution of rating is well spread out: there are many users that rate high (more than 4) and others that rate low (less than 2). For users that rate more movies, their average rating increases and nears an average rating of 4 at 10^5 ratings. This indicates a behavioral bias in the rating feature: movies are more likely to be rated higher since ratings are dominated by users that rate highly.

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Average Height of Male in Feet Per Country

2011-09-30T07:40:00.000-07:00

The average height of a mature male varies by several inches from country to country. While men in Vietnam, Indonesia and Cambodia come in at just over five and a quarter feet tall, men from the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany are likely to be more than six feet tall. This variation is likely a combination current diet and genetic influences.

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Republican and Democrat Members in the Senate

2011-09-28T20:19:00.000-07:00

This chart shows the number of Republican (Red) and Democrat (Blue) members of the U.S. Senate at every 2 year election cycle. What is most interesting is the imbalance: the regions at the top of the graph show the majority party. At a base level there appears to be three time periods: 1860-1940: republican majority, 1940-1980: democrat and 1980-present: again republican. These three eras can loosely be referred to as 1) The Lincoln era where post Civil War growth and prosperity hit a brick wall at the Great Depression, 2) The Roosevelt era where the New Deal rescued us out and 3) the Reagan era including the crushing of labor unions and deregulating the economy.

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pH Levels

2011-09-28T08:13:00.000-07:00

The pH scale approximates the density of Hydrogen atoms (acidity) in a solution, or inversely the density of OH (alkalinity). Solutions such as milk, rain or human blood have near neutral pH. Alcoholic beverages such as wine and beer have a low pH value explaining why sea water is the best remedy for a hangover.

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Comparing Summer in San Francisco

2011-09-27T07:07:00.000-07:00

This plot shows a seven day rolling average of temperatures measured in San Francisco using wunderground's amazing webservice. In early September, it seemed summer was finally supposed to arrive but hadn't quite gotten here yet. Looking at the chart, you can see that 2011 actually had a warmer end July to August than 2010. However, as expected, in early September, 2011 was consistently cooler. It was only in the last week when temperatures in 2011 began to feel like summer. Did you like the other picture better?

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Price of Ounce of Gold

2011-09-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

The average price of gold today is just shy of $1600 per ounce. This is up from its average value for 2010 at $1224 per ounce. The price has been rapidly increasing since 2002. Previously, gold remained relatively constant at about $400 per ounce, besides a burst in the early 1980s.

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World Energy Use Breakdown

2011-09-15T08:36:00.001-07:00

Over 85% of the world's energy use comes from fossil fuels: 37% from oil, 25% from coal and 23% from natural gas. Nuclear energy makes up 6% while biomass and hydroelectric energy contribute another 7% together. The remaining 2% consists of solar, wind and geothermal.

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Number of Fast Food Restaurants Per Type

2011-09-15T08:29:00.000-07:00

Subway is by far the largest fast food chain restaurant in the United States with over 25,000 restaurants, compared to McDonald's 14,000. Starbucks is the only other fast food chain with over 10,000 locations. Over 100,000 fast food chain restaurants exist across the nation.

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The Space Shuttle Legacy

2011-09-15T08:25:00.000-07:00

NASA's space shuttles made 135 missions shown as blue dots beginning in 1981 and ending on July 8 of this year. This program consisted of two tragic events, the Challenger launch failure on January 28, 1983 and the Columbia re-entry failure occurring on February 1, 2003 shown as red dots. Did you like the old image better?

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U.S. Unemployment Rate

2011-09-15T08:06:00.000-07:00

The current U.S. unemployment rate stands at 9.1%, down from 2009 levels just over 10%. Since 1950, unemployment has varied between a low of 2.5% in the 1950s to nearly 11% during the 1980s. Unemployment variations appear to have a variation frequency that spans almost a decade between peaks or troughs.

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Threat Level

2011-09-15T08:05:00.000-07:00

The Homeland Security Advisory System was initiated in March of 2002 in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The monitor consisted of five levels: low (blue), guarded (green), elevated (yellow), high (orange) and severe (red). Since its implementation, the monitor bounced back and forth between elevated and high besides one brief time period of severe in late 2006. The system remained at high for the remainder of its lifetime before being phased out earlier this year in April 2011. Did you like the old image better?

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Breakdown of Calorie Intake Per American

2011-09-12T21:06:00.000-07:00

The average American consumes 2673 calories per day. While fat and sugar artificially added to food accounts for more 1100 of those calories, the calories that come from fruit and vegetables is just over 200.

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Nuclear Weapons Over Time

2011-09-12T09:02:00.000-07:00

The United States was the first country to develop nuclear weapons in the 1940s but other countries, especially the Soviet Union followed close behind. By the late 1980s and the height of the Cold War, Russia collected nearly 40,000 nuclear warheads while the United States held on tightly to its stockpile of over 20,000. With the fall of the Soviet Union, stockpiles of nuclear warheads around the world began decreasing. Today, there are less than 20,000 known nuclear warheads worldwide, although this is still hundreds of times the needed amount to wipe out the entire human race.

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Geological Time Periods

2011-09-12T08:51:00.000-07:00

The history of Earth and the evolution of life spans billions of years and consists of many layers of eons, eras and shorter time periods. Scientists devote their lives to small slice of this entire history attempting to understand how their Earth was different back then and how life struggled and thrived in a changing environment. Some of the most important eras are shown above. Most of the Earth's history consists of the Precambrian era that dates from nearly 5 billion years ago to about 500 million years ago. During this time period the first life (prokaryotes) emerged as well as eukaryotes and multicellular organisms. Life got more interesting in the Paleozoic era and the "Cambrian Explosion" that produced myriads of new species. Dinosaurs ruled the Mesozoic era, which can be broken down into the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous time periods. The most recent era is the Cenozoic, where mammals began to dominate the land.

Price of Gas

2011-09-12T08:44:00.001-07:00

The price of gas remained nearly flat from 1980 to 2000, varying between 1$ and 2$ for the entire period. Prices began increasing rapidly after 2000 and reached their peak above 4$ per gallon shortly after Hurricane Katrina in 2007. Gas prices have reached comparable levels in recent weeks, surpassing 4$ for only the second time in history.

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The Phases of the Moon

2011-09-12T06:40:00.000-07:00

Each row corresponds to a month starting on the bottom and traversing upwards. The days of the month go from left to right across the page. The viewer should imagine looking from the bottom of the page up making September 12 where the illuminated half points down a full moon. The full moon moves backwards a little bit every month, on October 11 and November 10.

Winning Percentage Per MLB Team

2011-09-08T20:14:00.000-07:00

This graphic shows the winning percentage in vertical blue (and loosing percentage in yellow) per MLB team from the years 1990 to 2010 spanning the x axis. A black line indicates a 50% winning percentage for the year. The overall amount of blue per team indicates the winning percentage during these two decades. Some teams, like the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox show dominant wins during this time period while others teams such as the Baltimore Orioles or Kansas City Royals show consistent loosing records. Still others, such as the Chicago Cubs or San Diego Padres, show strong fluctuations from year to year.

Name Popularity Over Time

2011-09-08T07:56:00.000-07:00

The NameVoyager uses an amazing data set containing the names and birthdays of many people born in the United States since 1880 and visualizes this data in amazing ways. For any name, the relative popularity (rank) can be obtained over time. This figure shows the rank of three girls names: Catherine, Eleanor and Flora. While Eleanor was more popular than Catherine in the 1920s, it dipped through the 1980s before surpassing Catherine in rank in recent years. On the other hand, Flora dropped off the chart in the 1940s and has yet to resurface.

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Magnitude and Year of the Largest Earthquakes

2011-09-05T17:01:00.000-07:00

This figure indicates the 15 largest measured earthquakes occurring since 1920. The largest earthquake occurred in 1960 in Valdivia, Chile and registered 9.5 on the Richter scale. It seems there was a long silence of massive earthquakes between 1970 and 2000, followed by a higher rate than normal, mostly in Summatra. The most recent earthquake in Japan of this year registered 9.0.

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Atlantic Tropical Storms Per Year

2011-09-05T15:23:00.001-07:00

Hurricane Katia marks the 11th tropical storm of the 2011 season. Although we don't have many data points, the number of Atlantic tropical storms appear to have been increasing since about 1980, at a rate of almost one more tropical storm every 2 years! The most active year was 2005 when 28 tropical storms formed, 15 of which became hurricanes (including hurricane Katrina).

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Oyster Mushroom and Sage Alfredo

2011-09-02T06:40:00.001-07:00

Ok this one is a little more complicated: you still start by sauteing olive oil, garlic and a scallion and then transcend upward through the other ingredients. You finish by putting the completed sauce on top of the pasta.

Breakdown of World Carbon Dioxide Emissions

2011-09-01T08:02:00.001-07:00

Almost 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide was released into the Earth's atmosphere in 2010, a majority coming from the burning of fossil fuels. China surpassed the United States in 2007 to become the world's leading emitter of carbon dioxide. They emit 23% of all the carbon dioxide emitted into the Earth's atmosphere compared to 18% for the United States and 6% for India.

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Violence Against Journalists in Afghanistan

2011-08-30T07:04:00.000-07:00

Violence against journalists reporting on the U.S. led invasion of Afghanistan erupted in 2005, each month averaging several incidents. By the end of 2010, when most of the fighting had subsided, the reports of violence became intermittent. Overall, there have been nearly 270 reports of violence against journalists in Afghanistan since 2001.

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Positions of Jupiter's Four Largest Moons

2011-08-30T05:14:00.000-07:00

Jupiter's four largest moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto orbit the planet every few (Earth) days as shown in the figure above. The three innermost moons, Ganymede, Europa and Io, are in "orbital resonance" completing trips around Jupiter in a time at a ratio of 1:2:4. This lock step dance produces strong tidal forces on Io making it the most geologically active object in the solar system.

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Search Terms Correlated with "Recession"

2011-08-29T07:16:00.000-07:00

Google Trends is a nice tool to explore the relative popularity of search terms over time. For example, looking at a historical record for skiing and swimming shows a peak for swimming searches in the summer and skiing searches in the winter. Some other search terms are less expected: the chart above shows the correlated trends for searches for the terms recession, puppies and lipstick. As a person's life get's more effected by the ailing economic conditions, they may be more likely to search for simple pleasures to make them happy.

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Portuguese Bean Soup

2011-08-26T06:54:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of the last recipe design.

Failed States

2011-08-25T04:59:00.000-07:00

There is no universally accepted definition of a "failed state", but the think tank Fund for Peace has been publishing an annual index for every country recognized by the United Nations as a sovereign nation since 2005. The index attempts to quantify a nation's stability or vulnerability and is based on 12 factors including an inability to provide public services and an inability to interact with the international community. Eerily reminiscent of the literacy rate per country, the nations with highest levels of alarm include those of central Africa and parts of Asia.

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Breakdown of U.S. Government Spending

2011-08-24T05:58:00.000-07:00

In 2009, the United States government spent 1.5 trillion dollars on its various departments and initiatives. This includes both the federal budget and the emergency stimulus package. About 45% of all spending (just shy of 700 billion dollars) was allocated for the Department of Defense. This is in contrast to the combined budgets of NASA, NSF and the EPA which account for about 3% of the total budget. old image

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Zynga's Daily Active Users Per App

2011-08-23T07:30:00.001-07:00

Zynga's viral marketing success rose to new heights with their release of Farmville in 2009. In addition to Cafe World and older Mafia Wars and Texas Holdem, Zynga reached 50 million daily active users by January 2010. By the end of 2010, traffic numbers were dropping for each of these games. With new releases, such as Frontierville, Cityville and Empire and Allies, Zynga has been able to maintain similar levels of daily active users. However the lifespan of these new releases appear to be even shorter, requiring even more rapid releases.

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The Distribution of Baseball Events Over Time

2011-08-20T13:15:00.000-07:00

This graph represents the relative frequency in which events in a MLG game occur for that year. While total hits (homeruns + hits) has decreased from about 30% to 25% since 1900, strikeouts increased from 8% to 20%. On the other hand, the percentage of events that are walks remain constant. Are there theories out there why this is?

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Pounds of Meat Consumption Per American Per Year

2011-08-19T05:39:00.000-07:00

The average American consumed over 250 pounds of meat in 2008, over a 100 pound increase from 1910 levels. Chicken surpassed beef a few years ago to become today's meat of choice at about 100 pounds per year. Turkey has made strides similar to chicken, increasing over 10x in consumption compared to a century ago. Veal and lamb on the other hand are relatively extinct in the American diet currently at less than 1% compared to a 10% contribution early in the 20th century.

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The Most Popular English Words

2011-08-18T06:55:00.001-07:00

Using this list and wordle, I created a word cloud of the most popular words. The size of the word is proportional to how high it is ranked in the list, not how often it is actually used compared to other words.

Breakdown of World Military Spending

2011-08-17T07:10:00.000-07:00

The world spent about 1.5 trillion dollars on its nation's militaries in 2010. The United States contributed about 45% of this total, amounting to 698 Billion dollars. The U.S. is followed by Europe at 25% and Asia at about 18%. The rest of the nations in North America, the Middle East, South America and Africa make up the small remaining section.

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Import Network

2011-08-15T21:07:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia provides the biggest importers and exporters per country across the world. Drawing the network of biggest importers per country reveals an interesting structure: China is at the center of it all serving as the biggest exporter to the United States, the European Union and a collection of other Asian countries. The U.S. serves as the biggest exporter to most of North and South America, while the E.U. serves the rest of the European countries and most of Africa.

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Timeline of the United States Most Deadly Wars

2011-08-14T14:17:00.000-07:00

The area of the red bars in this graphic indicate the number of American deaths resulting from this war and their horizontal placement and width correspond to the time period in which this war was fought. The Civil War was America's most deadly war with over 600K deaths. This is followed by WWII and WW1 with about 400K with 115 K deaths respectively. The next most deadliest war for the United States was the Vietnam War with just under 60K deaths.

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Borscht

2011-08-09T08:54:00.001-07:00

Borscht is a soup recipe from Russia that gets its beautiful purple color from beets. This "inforecipe" starts from the bottom, as in filling a pot or bowl from the bottom up. The right side segments how to cook each portion before adding the next. Happy Friday!

Homerun Totals of the Greatest MLB Homerun Hitters

2011-08-09T08:47:00.000-07:00

Barry Bonds holds the MLB record for most lifetime homeruns at 762 during his 21 year career surpassing Hank Aaron's 755 homerun record during his 22 year career. Hank Aaron consistently averaged 36 homeruns per year for 20 years putting him in the lead for the first 13 years of his career. Babe Ruth, on the other hand, pitched almost fulltime for the first 4 years of his career and had very few homerun opportunities. When switching to a batter, Ruth averaged about 50 homeruns per year for the next 12 years of his career. For Barry Bonds, when trailing Hank Aaron by about 50 homeruns at the same point in his career and turned to steroid use and then averaged 45 homeruns per year for the next 5 years. Did you like the old image better?

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Literacy Rate Per Country

2011-08-09T08:33:00.000-07:00

Literacy rates are at their lowest in central Africa and central Asia. Mali, Southern Sudan, Burkina Faso and Niger all have literacy rates below 30%. The literacy rate is at 34% in Afghanistan, 49% for men and a meager 18% for women. Literacy is strongly correlated with income: most countries that are well off have literacy rates of nearly 100%

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Mobile Cellular Subscriptions Per 100 People, Iraq

2011-08-08T20:40:00.000-07:00

The mobile market has exploded in Iraq, increasing from less than 0.01 mobile phones per person in 2003 to over 0.6 in 2009 . One major reason is the linking of networks between the largest mobile companies in the country. Some projections estimate near saturation in the next five years.

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U.S. Debt as Percentage of Total GDP

2011-08-07T07:58:00.000-07:00

This year the United States Gross Debt surpassed its Gross Domestic Product for the first time since World War II. In the past decade the increase in U.S. debt is due largely to an increase in spending on health care (medicare and medicaid) and defense (almost 3%) and a 3.3% decrease in income tax. The stimulus bill passed in 2009 and included 100 billion for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and 245 Billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. This contributed to the massive increase in to 1.9 trillion, from 1 trillion in 2008. This increase sparked the controversial passing of the Budget Control Act of 2011 which established ways to reduce the public debt.

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