The Origins and Paths of Epidemics

This world map shows the origins and spreading paths of Malaria, Leprosy and Small Pox. No legend, but the implication is that as the main arteries diminish in width down to small capillaries represents the number of infection cases.  Key dates and locations are also identified with event description.

There is no designer byline on the graphic, but map is credited to Haisam Hussein.  I don't see the map in the gallery on Haisam's website, but he is given credit for the map on Lapham's Quarterly.

Found on digg.com.

HealthMap: The Global Disease Alert Map

HealthMap.org is an online map tool that locates any reports of disease from a selection of news sources.  Available in multiple languages, HealthMap is a great use of the Google Maps API.  In fact, HealthMap is funded by Google, which explains why they are so dependent on the Google Maps data.

HealthMap brings together disparate data sources to achieve a unified and comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases and their effect on human and animal health. This freely available Web site integrates outbreak data of varying reliability, ranging from news sources (such as Google News) to curated personal accounts (such as ProMED) to validated official alerts (such as World Health Organization). Through an automated text processing system, the data is aggregated by disease and displayed by location for user-friendly access to the original alert. HealthMap provides a jumping-off point for real-time information on emerging infectious diseases and has particular interest for public health officials and international travelers.

They also recently launched an iPhone app called Outbreaks Near Me, available for free in the iTunes app store.  The app allows you to view the maps from your iPhone and get alerts for outbreaks in your area.

Awesome Medical Visualizations

Really neat promotional video for Hybrid Medical Animation.  These guys do some amazing work.

The Infographic that Saved a Million Lives

Great story from 37signals.com about a very simple infographic that motivated Bill and Melinda Gates to change the focus of their charity spending.

“No graphic in human history has saved so many lives in Africa and Asia,” says NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof about an infographic in a ‘97 Times article that spurred Bill and Melinda Gates to take action on public health.

...But then bill confessed that actually it wasn’t the article itself that had grabbed him so much—it was the graphic. It was just a two column, inside graphic, very simple, listing third world health problems and how many people they kill. but he remembered it after all those years and said that it was the single thing that got him redirected toward public health.

Meet The World, Infographic Flags

Meet The World is an infographic project that uses the colors of eight national flags to represent some of the current issues in the world.

Icaro Doria is Brazilian, 25 and has been working for the magazine Grande Reportagem, in Lisbon, Portugal, for the last 3 years. He is part of the team (with Luis Silva Dias, João Roque, Andrea Vallenti and João Roque) that produced the flags campaign which has been circulating the Earth in chain letters via e-mail.

I found the link to this on rc3.org.

Clarifying Cloning

From The Genetics and Public Policy Center, an infographic demonstrating the difference between research cloning and reproductive cloning.

Smoking Kills 200,000 Every 6 Months

Skull With Cigarette, 2007 [based on a painting by Van Gogh]
72x98"

Depicts 200,000 packs of cigarettes, equal to the number of Americans who die from cigarette smoking every six months.

I've become a big fan of Chris Jordan's work, especially the Running The Numbers series. I just noticed that he has added to the collection on his website with some new pieces! A friend of mine quit smoking this week, so in her honor I want to share one of the new artwork pieces.

The Flu Virus

Flu season is coming soon, so its about time to know your enemy. Graphic of the Flu virus from newscientist.com.

Kinda looks like a big squishy ball doesn't it?

World Clock Counter

You've seen these counters on highway billboards and other websites before. The World Clock from poodwaddle.com combines many of these counters together into one dashboard.

I've added a smaller version to the bottom of the right pane here on on the blog.

The Price of Piercing

The risks associated with body piercing from the Washington Post in November 2006. The information goes as far as male and female genitalia, but they wisely decided not to include those in the image. Why would you pierce those voluntarily?!?

The image shows obvious placement on the body. The number of squares represents the healing time necessary with the dark color representing the minimum time, and the lighter color showing the potential longer time to heal. I would have also showed the price to have each area pierced, but they neglected to include that.

Who would have thought that a pierced nipple could cause a "breast-feeding impairment"? Let's hope the baby doesn't confuse the nipple ring for a teething ring!