Elements & Country of Discovery

So if you're into the Elements, you'll especially love this Periodic Table of Elements arranged by the country that discovered them.  

The scientists who discovered each element are shown using the flag of their respective country, and with the help of PhD student, Jamie Gallagher, we have a beautiful table of elements.

click to enlarge

25 Things About Superman You Didn't Know

Virgin Movies put this infographic together prior to the release of Man of Steel, and I thought I would share it.  And there are several things I didn't know.  Like Gene Hackman refusing to cut his hair and Marlon Brando refusing to learn his lines.  Pretty cool stuff.  Check it out.

click to enlarge

Healthy Recipe Substitutions

This is absolutely crazy.  And I don't mean it in a negative way.  I mean it in the sense that I never thought you could use prunes or avocado instead of butter, or vanilla extract instead of sugar.  I've heard about some of the substitutions in this infographic, but a majority of them are new to me.

In in the end, this is all about having a healthier heart and living longer, so check it out.  Click the infographic and visit Greatist for a clearer image.

 

Which Dates Are Most Common for Making Love?

Yesterday I posted a chart where you could check to see if your birth date was one of the most common ones.  I even suggested that Fall and early Winter were probably the best time to conceive a child.

So of course I get online to day, and someone with a lot of time on their hands, edited the chart to reflect what I suggested, LOL.

What else is there to do in the winter? LOL

What Type of Sleeper Are You?

I'm a side-sleeper, stomach sleeper, and pillow-armer, what are you?

via The Doghouse Diaries

Which Birth Dates Are Most Common?

I'm going to assume Fall and early Winter are the best times to conceive a child, wouldn't you say?

Farm to Fork: The Story of Our Toxic Food System

Soooooo, not something we really want to read or see early in the morning, but yeah, pretty much everything we eat will give us cancer.  And this lovely infographic provides you with every detail.  Click on the image below to get the full picture.  The infographic is brought to you courtesy of Healthychild.org.

How Is Meat-Eating Affecting The Planet?

I know that every Tuesday I blog about "Things We Can Do To Save The Environment" but looking at these statistics, it gets even more depressing.  Ugh, but I love my meat.  

Some pretty interesting stuff from Bustr Bensn...

What Your Style of Eggs Say About You

So you like your eggs a certain way, or maybe you don't like eggs, who knows?  In either case, if you don't like eggs you're either a Vegan or a Ghost.  Remember that kid who picked his nose and ate it? Well, if you like your eggs Sunny-Side Up, that's you! LOL.

Source: Bite

The Ultimate Spaceship Face-off

If you're a Star Trek, Star Wars, Dr. Who, or science fiction aficionado, you may like this interactive chart.

Author, Chris Kirk over at Slate has created a "highly speculative search for the fastest ship in science fiction" by comparing the speeds of the Star Trek Enterprise NCC-1701, Star Wars' Millennium Falcon, the TARDIS from Doctor Who, the Heart of Gold from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Jupiter 2 from Lost in Space, and even our very own Voyager 1 from NASA.

Kirk gives a very detailed account of his research in reference to each ship; You will find this by clicking on the image to the right, where you can set a course for the Alpha Centauri, Galactic Center, or Andromeda Galaxy.  

Surprisingly, what may take the Enterprise decades to reach, the Millennium Falcon can reach in hours, the TARDIS in just seconds.

The Evolution of "Star Trek" (Infogrpahic)

This is absolutely terrific.  Especially if you're a Star Trek fan or just curious about the franchise in general.  Thank you Space.com for sharing this amazing piece of work!

Source: SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

On Sept. 8, 1966, an American science fiction icon was born. The “Star Trek” television show lasted only three seasons, but spawned a lasting legacy that has stretched across decades and led to four spinoff live-action shows, a cartoon series and a dozen feature films.

Gene Roddenberry and his team set their show aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, a sophisticated starship with a competent crew of professional astronauts.

A pilot episode starring Jeffrey Hunter was rejected by the NBC TV network as “too cerebral” for a general audience. The show was retooled with William Shatner in the starring role of Captain James T. Kirk. Leonard Nimoy was featured as the alien officer Spock.

After its cancellation in 1969, the show grew even more popular, appearing several times per week (or even daily) in syndication. 

The Star Wars phenomenon of 1977 led Roddenberry to consider bringing the show back to television. Soon the plan changed, and “Star Trek the Motion Picture” appeared in 1979 to lukewarm reviews. Not wanting to waste their investment, the studio replaced Roddenberry at the helm and made several sequel films with much lower budgets.

In 1987, Roddenberry created a new TV show from the ground up with an entirely new cast led by Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard.  “Star Trek the Next Generation” debuted directly into syndication, not appearing on any of the major TV networks. Its popularity grew slowly but eventually it became successful enough to spawn its own set of feature films.

Three more TV series would follow: “Deep Space Nine,” “Voyager” and “Enterprise.” When the latter went off the air in 2005, an unbroken run of 18 years of Star Trek on television was ended.

By 2009 Star Trek had faded from pop culture prominence, but a reboot movie, called simply “Star Trek,” changed all that. Director J.J. Abrams reimagined the original TV series, casting Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto in the lead roles of Kirk and Spock. The film became the highest-grossing of the franchise.

In 2013, Abrams’ sequel “Star Trek into Darkness” features Benedict Cumberbatch as a terrorist villain.

The Illustrated Guide to Sleeping Positions

I always start out sleeping like "the fear of the what's to come" and end up like "the swimmer" when I wake up. LOL.  Then again, the only one who truly knows is Ryan.  Check out this funny guide to sleeping positions.

The Band Director's Stress Graph

This is for all you folks who were or are in band.

Rethink Your Drink

From school projects to city-wide campaigns, "Rethink Your Drink" has been around for a few years now.  If you want proof this helps, I'm living it.  I stopped drinking soft drinks and cut down sugar consumption dramatically.  And it's made a difference in my life.  Now, I don't agree with certain politicians who think we should force people to stop drinking what they want, these are choices we should make on our own.  But knowing what we know today, we can prevent our children from developing horrible diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.

A school project showing the amount of sugar in each drink.

"When it comes to weight loss, there's no lack of diets promising fast results. There are low-carb diets, high-carb diets, low-fat diets, grapefruit diets, cabbage soup diets, and blood type diets, to name a few. But no matter what diet you may try, to lose weight, you must take in fewer calories than your body uses. Most people try to reduce their calorie intake by focusing on food, but another way to cut calories may be to think about what you drink." - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Food You'll Eat At The Office: A Breakdown

I can't recall how many times I dove into the donut basket at work.  It was quite a bit, but that was over a year ago.  I don't even drink Diet Coke anymore; I may have one a month, maybe.  And whenever we had parties or potlucks - the amount of junk food was endless.  Sure, they provided salad, but who wanted salad when there was pizza, chicken fettuccine, brisket, hot dogs, burgers, etc. etc.?

The following chart breaks down the different foods you'd eat while at the office.  And I'd have to say it's pretty spot-on.  From the upcoming book, To My Assistant: Things I'll Never Do to You, But Many Other Crazy Bosses Will.

I'm happy to say that I am now one of the 3%.  

Gun Violence - The Bible Belt - A Sea of Red

I find it kind of ironic that the states with the most gun-violence, are in the states with the most - God-fearing, Muslim-hating, Republican-leaning, Gay bashing people in the country.  Oh, and while we've had an increase of gun-violence in the state of Texas over the last several months - the state is huge, so that's why its suprisingly yellow.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) and its allies in Congress frequently claim that gun violence is highest in places with the toughest crime laws. But a new study from the Center for American Progress (CAP) suggests something closer to the opposite is true — the states with laxer gun laws tend to be the ones contributing the highest shares of national gun deaths and injuries. [America Under The Gun]

Just Sayn'

Star Wars Family Tree - Take 2

You might remember last month's post from Chart Geek.  Well, today I bring you another great Star Wars Family Tree from graphic designer and illustrator Joe Stone.

New Work
Following on from my Marvel Universe Family Tree series I decided to continue the idea and expand it into other areas of pop culture. As a huge Star Wars fan, and with the news that a new series of films were to be made, it seemed like the only option.

The characters are limited purely to the film and canonical TV series’ (sorry Mara Jade fans - although I’m not ruling out the possibility of drawing up an extended universe version at some point).

Click here to view the full thing on my portfolio site, where you can also download a whole bunch of iPhone wallpapers featuring some of the most popular characters for the price of a tweet.

How Not To Get Stuck Next To Someone That Sucks

Pure genius.  You've always had this problem. You arrive at a dinner party and don't know where to sit?  If the table is a 4 person, circle it's pretty simple. But if you're talking about a 6 or 8 person rectangular table, things start to get difficult.  How do you keep from getting stuck at the lonely side of the table, or sitting next to someone you particularly don't want to sit next to?

Well, Alex Cornell has given us some tips on choosing the right seat.  Check out his infographic and explanation:

One of the most complex social situations you will encounter is the 45 seconds that elapse while deciding where to sit for dinner at a restaurant. Your choice should appear natural, unbiased and haphazard if executed properly. Timing is everything.

These 45 seconds determine how enjoyable your next 2 hours will be. Once the pieces start to fall into place and people take their seats, your choices narrow. People sit, seemingly at random, and if you don't take the appropriate measures, you're inevitably stuck at the least interesting end of the table.

4 Person Circle: This is the ideal setup. You are safe sitting in any seat. Regardless how interesting everyone is, you pretty much can’t go wrong. Note: as the diameter of the table increases, so too does the importance that you sit adjacent to someone you like.
4 Person Square: This configuration (as opposed to two chairs on each side) is less fraught with problems. Something to watch out for is diagonal conversations, i.e. breaking the into two parts and getting stuck with the more boring of the three tablemates.
6 Person Circle: How loud the restaurant is determines how important it is that you claim a middle seat. A quiet space allows for cross-table diagnoal talking, and generally one conversation. A loud space however forces multiple conversations and less diagonal.
8 Person Rectangle: To get one of the interior 4 seats, you need to time your approach expertly. You can’t be first, else you’ll be expected to file to the end. And you can’t be last, else you’ll be stuck with the least interesting seat at the table. Timing is everything.
7 Person Rectangle: It’s very easy to get screwed in this scenario. While it may appear like you can sit anywhere except the ends, this is not so. You are at risk of sitting next to the lonely end-seat, which requires you to speak soley to that person for the duration of the meal.
2 Tables of Any Size: You’re fucked. Regardless of how you time your approach, you will inevitably choose too soon. Lament as the other table’s attendance crystallizes into what is clearly the superior group. Sometimes it’s best to visit the bathroom while seats are chosen, so any seating disasters are the result of chance, and not your own miscalculation.

via alexcornell

Medical Masterpieces by Sarah Hargis

Regardless if you're in the medical profession or not, I highly recommend looking at these amazing drawings made by Sarah Hargis.  I had previously seen The Brain and The Nervous System but now she's gone and created The Human Heart, and I had to blog about her. 

Sarah is just a regular gal like you and I, she's a grad student at Virginia Tech and during her spare time she likes to draw and do "crafty things".  If you read her profile, she states that she drew these diagrams as a study guide for a friend of hers who is in medical school.  Personally, I can see this becoming really huge - really, really huge.  So I'm glad to be one of the first to blog about her. :-)  She recently created a site on Etsy and is now selling her Medical Masterpieces.  

Keep them coming Sarah!