Certitude and Change

April 8, 2015April 8, 2015 / PK Read / Leave a comment

Images of this 1956 Pictorial Wildlife and Game Map of the United States have been kicking around the Internet for a while now. It caught my eye when I first saw it, but I’ve been pondering just why I find it so intriguing.

Pictorial Wildlife & Game Map of the United States (1956)
Click to enlarge.
Source: Shorewood Press

Sure, it’s picturesque and pretty. It harks back to a cheery era of view of land and environment that pre-dated the current changes in biodiversity. Or rather, it pre-dated the deepening knowledge and understanding of what those changes mean.

Recent biodiversity studies are showing that while the quantitative amount of species might be fairly constant in a given region, the composition and quality of those numbers are undergoing rapid alteration. More species of algae and invertebrates, for example, and fewer of birds and mammals and corals.

The 1956 map doesn’t just show a wide variety of iconic mammals and birds, it shows them in an array of overwhelming plenty. And I think this starts to get at what I find so interesting. Small or large, mighty or modest, posed as if poised for action, the entire map is packed with more animals than any one person could ever track or hunt or witness. Except that, really, it isn’t.

Fifteen animals listed as ‘big game’, most of them bears. Another fifteen animals as ‘small game’, with several squirrel and rabbit types, followed by fifteen ‘animal predators’, mostly foxes and skunks. Then a scattering of small mammals and lots of birds.

And yet, it looks like an overabundance, a certainty that bounty always has and always will exist.

And maybe at some point, it was.

This older map doesn’t concern itself with the mammals that might be found almost anywhere, at least in a related species.

Map of the Animal Kingdom, circa 1835.
Source: American Folk Art Museum via streetsofsalem

No squirrels or pigeons here, just the big guys. Jaguars and camels, black bears and bison, the iconic creatures that might nourish us, serve us, carry us, or eat us.

Again, though, there’s the static certitude that if one were to visit a region, one would find the animals as shown.

And then there’s this new map that shows both our changing attitudes towards animals as well as towards mapping.

California Roadkill Observation System. The map can be configured to search for a number of different species, and for specific time frames. This version is a screenshot of the past 90 days.
Visitors can add their own observations to the database.
Source: California Roadkill Observation System

The California Roadkill Observation System is an interactive cartography project that dates back to 2009, and it charts ongoing instances of roadkill in California. Anyone can take a photo of an animal killed on California’s roads, and upload it for inclusion.

This grim diary serves several purposes. One is to show what kinds of animals are present in a given region, and to a certain extent, how abundant they are, i.e. the health of the population. For instance, the project has documented a general decline in wildlife roadkill over the course of the California drought.

UC Davis professor Fraser Shilling, who operates the database, calls it a ‘continuous wildlife sampling device.’ It can offer information on invasive species, such as the westward movement of the Eastern grey squirrel, at least where their presence intersects with motorized human mobility.

It’s not as visually arresting as the 1956 map, but it does something that older maps can’t: Show the movement and abundance of life on the ground. It carries no inherent optimism or promises, just the acknowledgement of change on the ground, and an invitation to awareness.

Let’s Play Big Data

April 23, 2014 / PK Read / Leave a comment

Turbulence – artwork based on algorithms and hand-drawn systems to create computational and natural system visualisations.
Artist: Owen Schuh via DataIsNature

The other day I overheard a student next to me on a flight say, “I can remember the words to almost every song I’ve ever heard more than once or twice – if only the legal cases I need to learn were set to music, I could remember them all.”

Optimistic, I know, but maybe not so far off.

Appeal to the brain’s pleasure center and learning becomes as easy as humming a well-known tune.

Along the same lines, researchers have been turning to crowdsourced data processing to work through big data conundrums. Offer a means of pleasurable participation for data entry, such as a game platform, and citizen scientist gamers will come.

Cancer Research UK worked together with game developers to create a smartphone game that would help them outsource a large backlog of genetic micro-array data garnered from thousands of breast cancer patients over the years. The result was Play to Cure: Genes in Space, which is basically a space shooter game in which the player finds the best path through an obstacle course, shooting asteroids and mapping successful escape routes.

A sample of genetic micro-array data. The analysis involves identifying the areas where the dots are at their most dense.
Source: Gamasutra

The possible paths, however, are actually maps of genetic micro-arrays, and the players game solutions are uploaded to the Cancer Research UK database for processing. After one month of use, gamers worked through data that it would have taken researchers six months to process without assistance.

The game version of the original data, with possible paths marked through the denser areas. Source: Gamasutra

The Genes in Space game version of the original data, with possible paths marked through the denser areas.
Source: Gamasutra

Another game, Geo-Wiki, deals with processing data on cropland cover and land use. From the Geo-Wiki site: “Volunteers review hotspot maps of global land cover disagreement and determine, based on what they actually see in Google Earth and their local knowledge, if the land cover maps are correct or incorrect. Their input is recorded in a database, along with uploaded photos, to be used in the future for the creation of a new and improved global land cover map.”

The ‘game’ is a quick image/response competition. The platform can be expanded to include further agricultural and land-use data from users, which is then reflected in other projects that support better environmental monitoring.

The power of crowdsourcing is phenomenal, and I think we are just at the beginning of putting these tools to use outside of purely commercial marketing strategies. Having tried out both games, and having tried out the Geo-Wiki game, I think what’s still missing is that the games have to work on their own, as stand-alone games, for them to be truly addictive – and useful on a larger scale.

Seabed Data

March 5, 2014 / PK Read / Leave a comment

Image: Net Valley

The first trans-Atlantic communications cable was laid in 1858, carried across the ocean by two ships and connected to create instantaneous communication across an ocean.

Unfortunately, it only worked for few days, and it was almost ten years before a replacement was successfully laid. That cable, however, remained in service for a century.

I only mention that because I came across this global map of submarine communications cables. A cartography of big data streams at the bottom of the sea.

Submarine Cable Map (2014)
Source: TeleGeography
Click on the map for the interactive version

It all looks so tidy and reassuringly mechanical on a map like this.

Still, each and every festively colored line represents something like this:

That was laid like this:

Some of the cables, like those that cross the Izu-Ogasawara Trench off Japan, rest at 8000 meters (26,000 ft), a depth that almost equals the height of Mt. Everest. At some point, most of them must end up looking like some version of this:

The nuts and bolts of the modern world are subject to breakage, mostly due to either environmental forces (volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, storms) or human activity (mostly fishing lines, mining operations or dropped anchors).

Given the lack of knowledge of the Atlantic sea bed in the 19th century, it’s all the more impressive that the first successful cable last 100 years.

Seabed profiles.
Source: Telegeography

View from Above

February 27, 2014 / PK Read / 1 Comment

17th century celestial map by Dutch cartographer Frederik de Wit

We’re always looking for reasons, causality, connections, in life and in science. There’s an ongoing project that might be an invaluable tool in discovering unexpected interconnectivity on the planet’s surface.

The ICARUS Initiative (“International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space”) is a scientific collaboration working towards placing a remote sensory system on the International Space Station to track tagged animals around the globe.

The Icarus team is developing tag sensors that can be placed on any kind of animal, from zebras to butterflies, and which will relay the animals’ movements to the ISS antenna for distribution and analysis.

Movebank map. Click on the image for an interactive view, which can be filtered by animal identifiers.

Movebank map.
The data will be collected and stored with Movebank.
Click on the image for an interactive view, which can be filtered by animal identifiers.

By allowing scientists combine data sets from separate studies in new ways, including meteorological and geological data, entirely new questions can be proposed and ideas tested.

Suggested uses include tracking the spread of disease, gaining insight into migration, ecological patterns and better understanding of evolutionary processes.

And then there’s the example given by Dr. Martin Wikelski, head of the ICARUS Initiative and Director at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology: By observing the movement of goats on Italy’s Mount Etna, volcanic eruptions can be predicted up to six hours in advance.

Huichol cross (‘God’s eye’). The four points represent the eternal processes of earth, fire, air and water. Colors carry symbolic meanings, as well.
Source: Geo-Mexico

When I was a kid growing up in California, it was common to pass the pre-Internet, pre-digital time of day by making God’s eyes, stick and yarn creations that symbolize the power to see and understand the unknown. God’s eye weavings are mostly decorative now, but the basic colors represent various aspects of life. Weaving together a God’s eye can be a way of meditating on how the various strands of life work together in unseen ways.

There isn’t really a scientific equivalent to the God’s eye, but projects like the Icarus Initiative might just be a start.

What is Missing

December 5, 2013December 5, 2013 / PK Read / Leave a comment

An ongoing project initiated by designer Maya Lin is a stunning combination of big data, environmental awareness and subtle beauty.

Harvesting from a wide variety of historical documents, scientific research, citizen observations and memories, What is Missing looks at the spaces left by the decline and disappearance of species, habitats and ecosystems.

The web presence for the project features a global map sprinkled with bright dots, each dot marking an event.

The map can be navigated to look at events past and present.

Many of the dots for Past events mark a loss (in the case of a dot near my own village in France, the story is about the loss of open fields and forest to suburban sprawl), while some of the Present dots signify work being done by conservation and environmental groups.

Global Map
Source: What is Missing?

There are short videos and sound recordings of landscapes, species, waterways. Visitors are invited to add their own memories.

On Earth Day 2014, April 22, a new navigation direction will open: the Future.

In an excellent interview last year with Yale e360, Lin said, “We have actually forgotten how abundant the planet used to be and I think if I can pique your memory and make you realize how incredible biodiversity was in your own backyard, then maybe it is going to spur you to action, at which point we also have something on the Web site called “what you can do” — simple things each one of us can do in our everyday lives.”

I am particularly fond of work that takes a long view, and this bears some relation to the spirit of another favorite of mine, The Long Now.

Temporary installations related to What is Missing have taken place around the world, but the interactive web site is available for exploration any time, anywhere, and is worth an extended visit.

From the video Unchopping a Tree
The video looks at how long it would take to clear some of the world’s most famous parks
at the current rate of deforestation (90 acres/minute).
Source: What is Missing?

Southern Swirl

October 18, 2013October 18, 2013 / PK Read / Leave a comment

Hurricanes and tropical storms since 1851
Credit: John Nelson/IDVSolutions
Click on the image to go to the full-size version.

Over on the ever-mesmerizing UXBlog, I found these hypnotic examples of historical cartography – a backward glance at a century of hurricanes. These maps are oriented with the Antarctic at the center, and show both the trajectory and intensity of each storm for which data was available.

According to John Nelson, who created the maps, ” The fine folks at NOAA (*National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) keep an archive of storm paths with wind speed, storm name, date, among other attributes, and are always updating and refining information for past events based on historical evidence and educated hunches.”

Of course, with the introduction of satellites, big data collection and heck, even the telephone, for communicating storm information, we know more about storms now than we did 160 years ago. Also, during the course of working out these maps, Nelson realized that “we only really started logging the East and South hemisphere versions of these things around 1978” – by ‘we’, I’m assuming he is referring to the US-based NOAA.

And this wouldn’t come as a surprise to me – it is only with the spread of globe-spanning communication and data technology that many have lifted their gaze from their own immediate surroundings and extended it to the rest of planet to see wider interactions.

Just as interesting is Nelson’s description of how he created these maps and how he arrived at this particular ‘bottoms-up’ perspective. The circle that looks like an iris around the pupil of the Antarctic is the equator – notice that the storms all swirl away from it in either direction.

Here’s an animated version of the map that displays all storm seasons dating back to 1978.

Hurricanes & storms by season, 1978-2010
Credit: John Nelson/IDVSolutions
Click on the image to go to the full-size version.

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