Design, Science and Technology

Temple University researchers recently put together the world's largest tree of life visualized across time. The family tree of living and extinct organisms encompasses 50,000 species—only a fraction of the world's history of life—and would easily take up hundreds of pages if laid out linearly. To fit their work onto a printed page, the researchers, led by evolutionary biologist S. Blair Hedges, instead decided to visualize the data as a spiral.

Via Lauren Moss

Exactly 70 years ago this month the world’s first electronic programmable digital computer was created. It was called Colossus and was engineered in the UK by code breakers working during the Second World War. 

Computers and their uses have changed significantly over the past 70 years – primarily government machines quickly proved their worth in the business landscape, and more recently they have become commonplace in homes too.

Akita, a London IT support company has produced a large interactive page and infographic to showcase the developments in technology. It can be viewed in full here: http://www.akita.co.uk/computing-history/ or as a static image at the link.

Via Lauren Moss

 Often, complex stories are more easily communicated, understood and, ultimately, remembered, when they take visual form.

Aside from data and words, infographics use images and graphical representations. Those key elements – images, words and numbers – operate as a system for simplifying information, revealing new patterns, and producing new knowledge in various fields. In fact, they might not have always been called “infographics,” but info/data-based visualizations have always been around.

Via Lauren Moss

Yet another creation has rolled off the powerhouse infographics assembly line over at Pop Chart Lab, and this time, the indefatigable taxonomizers of alcohols and famous quotes have turned their attention to works of architecture.

The Schematic of Structures organizes what the designers describe as "90 eminent edifices erected and perfected throughout history." Arranged by height, the infographic lines up some of the greatest works envisioned and built by man since prehistory, from the Neolithic Cairn of Barnenez and the Parthenon to more modern creations like London's Gherkin and the Burj Khalifa.

Via Lauren Moss

'Humans are good at a lot of things, but putting time in perspective is not one of them. It's not our fault - the span of time in human history, and even more so in natural history, are so vast compared to the span of our life and recent history that it's almost impossible to get a handle on it.'

View the information sources and data here.

Via Lauren Moss

Advertising has come a long way since the first ever online ad was sold in 1993.

This new infographic from Marin Software plots the industry's biggest moments, from the launch of Facebook to Twitter's promotional tweets and the more recent introduction of Google Adwords.

Via Lauren Moss