Worthy Web Sites
From time to time we run across relevant and often extraordinary online resources like these, and we post them here for your education and enjoyment. These sites are well worth a visit.
Earth: A Graphic Look at the State of the World
Comprising 15 full-color maps and over 100 tables and graphs, this 27" x 36" wall chart is one of the most compact and comprehensive resources ever printed. The integrated overview connects a maze of disparate issues such as oil supply and food production, global warming and global fisheries, population and bio-diversity. The image shown here represents just a very small section of the chart! This publication of the nonprofit Global Education Project summarizes in one place the conditions of the world's ecology and humanity and how they affect each other.
Indonesia's "Lost World"
Historically the human footprint has been large and, for the most part, destructive to nature out of proportion to the relatively short span of time human beings have walked the earth. We often read of species on the brink of extinction; whereas all too rarely do we learn of the discovery of rare or previously unknown species in the few remaining isolated pockets of truly untouched wilderness in the world. This National Geographic slideshow spotlights the 2005 findings of a team of scientists on the island of New Guinea, and graphically illustrates how much we have to lose collectively if we fail to reduce the size and impact of our footprint through sustainable product development and other environmental measures.
The Orion Nebula
An amazingly detailed view of space taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope between 2004 and 2005. This interactive version of the image allows you to pan and zoom through the cloud. A picture book of star formation, the Orion Nebula is 1,500 light-years away from Earth, but also the nearest star-forming region to our planet. These stars reside in a dramatic dust-and-gas landscape of plateaus, mountains, and valleys that are reminiscent of the Grand Canyon. Though too small to be seen clearly even in this super-sharp image, many of these stars are surrounded by protoplanetary discs of gaseous material — the building blocks of future solar systems.