USGS Topographic Quad Maps

After talking about USGS topographic quads for NJ in class, these might be useful ways to explore the language used throughout the US on these amazing maps.








A special thanks goes out to Mike Siegel and the Rutgers Cartography Lab.  This is a great resource for students and for pros.

Federal government shedding PhDs

Science reports that the US Government now has 10,000 fewer STEM PhDs than it did a year before. 

Updating Canada's Floodmaps

10% of all houses in Canada are in the floodplain, but the maps in Canada are out-of-date. It turns out that the question of whether they should update the maps to a more accurate outcome is being fiercely debated.

Nature's 10

A fascinating list of people worth knowing about: Nature's 10

Submarine Cables

Check out this impressive sequence of annual maps designed to tell the evolving story of submarine cables. It would be easy to think that everything has gone to microwave or satellite communications, but these maps show an incredible growth in cables AND do it gorgeously.

Wiki-Poundbury

England has a town, designed by architect John Simpson, that was started in 1993 and should be completed in 2028. With roughly 5,000 residents, Poundbury is an experiment in planning, design, and social engineering which has been built with support along the way from Prince/King Charles (who studied architecture in school).

Wiki-Otis elevating railway

 Otis Elevating Railway - a defunct funicular in the Catskills

Wiki-Spore Drive

Spore Drive - mushroom-inspired sci-fi propulsion system.

Wiki-ICD-11

ICD-11 is the International Classification of Diseases, 11th Revision. It is a list of nearly 90,000 things that you could worry about.