#157;

A gang of urban explorers climbed up the nearly constructed Shard in London. Check out their photos here (I'd give the written account a miss, if I were you). And click on this image for a great panorama:

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How the New York Times graphics department brings stories to life, visually:

   

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Best use of lego I've yet seen. This is so inventive, so efficient, so cool:

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BPoD

I used to manage BPoD - Biomedical Picture Of the Day. That involved image sourcing, uploading, promotion, and occasionally writing the image summaries. I still contribute regularly.

This video, produced to celebrate BPoD's launch, was one of my first forays into the world of video editing.


Click here to scroll through the ever-growing archive of my pieces on the BPoD website.

#155;

It's been a while. Feast on this bunch o' goodies.

Inside the creative process of a medical illustrator - wicked awesome:

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Sticking with the illustration theme, check out Thomas Sullivan's food chain illustrations:

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I really like the sentiment behind this rant/essay from Stephen Fry. A love of language is not the same as inane pendantry.

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I think there was other good stuff to share, but it's now lost in my readers and read-laters. Just a quick reminder to finish. Check out BPoD - Biomedical picture of the day (which is one of the projects I'm working on at the moment, in my current job). Showcasing the beautiful side of biomedical research.

#154; small world

Wired has a selection of videos from the Nikon Small World In Motion competition. Go check out all of the videos. Here's the winner - Ink injection into blood vessels:


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Sticking on the micro-theme, look at these amazing photographs of insects peeled off a car's windshield. By Voker Steger

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Have a look at Minjeong An's art. A lovely mix of dataviz, mathematical and scientific abstractions and artistic flair.

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I mentioned it a while ago, but I only just got around to going to the London Transport Museum's Painting By Numbers gallery. A small but brilliant selection of classic data visualisation posters from around the 1930s. The visualisingdata flickr stream has some images. It's well worth a visit (despite the £13 entrance fee). The best part is that after taking in the classic data posters, you move through to the "Sense and the City" exhibition, that looks towards how transport will change in the future, and how we can harness movement data to improve services. This section of the museum has some stunning modern data animations, and the movement from the 1930s design to modern work is splendid.

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Finally, if you only read one online article today, make it this one about the impact of spending too much time absorbing internet crap on our happiness. It uses as its springboard a study that showed that excessive time online leads to reduced happiness and"social well-being" in 8-12 year old girls. While studies like that always need to be read with a significant degree of caution, this article regardless raises points about online (and, really, any consumption) that are well worth thinking about.

#153; Videos

Watch this video. It's a trailer for "Getting Up". I'm a huge fan of graffiti & street art. It's not often that that interest falls in line with amazing innovation and scientific progress, but this looks like an incredible story:


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While I was at university I did a research project on bird flight using video cameras strapped on pigeons' backs (you can read it all here, if you're that way inclined), but the jerky, grainy footage I was using didn't quite match up with what you see in this clip, from BBC's new(ish) series, Earthflight. They've managed to get some stunning footage, and although the actual series itself isn't quite as entertaining as i'd hoped, this is remarkable:



On a related note, Wired have a great gallery of amateur high-speed flight clips. This is my favourite, but go check out the whole gallery:


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Continuing the theme of beautiful videos of nature, take a look at Drew Berry's animations of the unseen beauty of biology:

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#152; Pretty science stuff

A sciencish post today:

If you have an iPad, download the NASA visualisation app now, from the brains at the "scientific visualisation studio". It's lovely.

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A new study has drawn detailed new maps of science based on online "clickstreams" to determine the links between science journal topics. Interesting stuff.

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Scientific American's top 5 animal videos of 2011. The gorilla video is well worth a watch, but my personal favourite is this peacock spider mating dance. Unusually good music selection in this video, too, I thought:

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Finally a beautifully calming video from Malaysia:



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#151;

The London Transport Museum may not be somewhere I'm particularly well acquainted with, but I'll definitely be heading to the Painting By Numbers exhibition from January 6. Classic data visualisation posters:

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Wired runs out the top scientific discoveries from 2011. Particularly interesting is the "Intelligent Animals and Emotional Bees" bit, but all good stuff. Click here.

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Finally for now, lovely stop-motion animation music video detailing the history of the planet.

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#150; Phwoar, Feynman

There is nothing better you can do with the next 90 minutes of your life than watch this. It's a BBC Horizon documentary about the Nobel prize winning physicist Richard Feynman. If you're not sure who he is, or if he's worth finding out about, click here and warm up with the videos from the Feynman series. Then settle down and watch this. It seems to be two documentaries plonked in one video, but it's great from start to finish. Watch it.


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While you're in science video mode, go check out the new video site from the Royal Institution - RI Channel. As well as a host of videos they've made themselves, including the archive of Christmas Lectures, they are developing a tasty selection of videos from around the internet. Well worth your time.

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The always brilliant Big Picture has a great selection of nature photography. Phenomenal stuff.

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A great little short film/animation.

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Hypnotic visualisation of the planets orbits. Click here.

#149; Phwoar, Attenborough

Frozen Planet ended last night, and immediately after the last episode, this advert was played. I think it's fantabulous. Attenborough's Wonderful World. Be sure to watch this in full, 1080 HD glory:



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Remember those little riots in London in the summer? One feature of them was the way information, and misinformation, spread rapidly across the internet. The Guardian has visualised the spread of some of these rumours in a beautiful interactive graphic. How long did people believe that a tiger had been released, and was running rampage across Primrose Hill? Go check it out.

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Flying robots zooming in, taking all our jobs...

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The Journey of Mankind. Ever wanted to see the path early man took to spread across the world? Well take a look at this. It's not the prettiest program in the world, but fascinating nonetheless.

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The 10 weirdest new species from 2011. Well played, National Geographic. Check out Cyclops Shark:

I'm not sure where I found all of the links this time around, but if you're looking for the sources, the "Links I Love" on the right is a good place to start.

#148; David Mitchell and Snails

David Mitchell narrates 6 lovely animated "Adventures in Thought". Entertaining and informative. Tasty:

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Take a picture of the sky every 10 seconds for a year. What do you get? This awesome time-lapse grid thing.

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For some visual bio-porn check out the BioScapes gallery.

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And finally some shelly fun. As Marcel The Shell With Shoes On returns to our lives, I stumbled across this sweet snail advert. Heh.

Sequoia Snail - Les Andy's - WIZZprod from WIZZprod° on Vimeo.

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