A Time Traveller's Guide to the Zoo

London Zoo is the world’s oldest scientific zoo. In 2028, it will celebrate its 200th anniversary - a milestone in a long and storied history that visitors can now explore through the Zoo’s Time Traveller’s Guide to London Zoo, a collection of vintage maps that even includes the original 1826 "Design for the Garden."

The Time Traveller’s Guide to London Zoo offers a fascinating journey through nearly two centuries of zoological innovation, conservation breakthroughs, and iconic architecture - all presented through a beautifully curated collection of vintage maps dating back to 1826, the year the Zoo first opened its gates.

Using the map timeline, you can explore in detail the zoo’s historical layouts over the last 200 years. This series of maps reveals how the Zoo has evolved in response to new understandings of animal care and public engagement, while offering glimpses of its most iconic structures and beloved animal residents.

These structures include the much-loved Lubetkin Penguin Pool (now Grade I listed), the world’s first public aquarium (London Zoo even coined the word aquarium), and the Snowdon Aviary (now transformed into Monkey Valley). Some of the Zoo’s most famous residents - including Jumbo the elephant and Guy the Gorilla - also feature on the maps, along with notable human figures such as the naturalist Charles Darwin (who was a fellow and council member of London Zoo).

A City's Grief in One Street

Unless it has happened to you, I guess it is impossible to truly understand what it’s like to have your home destroyed. How, then, can news organizations convey the tragedy of such loss to a public that seems increasingly immune to the horrors of Israel’s atrocities in Gaza?

In 2023, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) created an interactive 3D model of an apartment block in Gaza that was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in 2021. Using photogrammetry, the ICRC allows users to virtually experience the civilian cost of the Israeli attacks on Gaza through a detailed digital reconstruction.

The ability to explore in detail 3D models of the wreckage caused to people’s homes and lives by military attacks provides a shocking insight into the consequences of war - an insight that, hopefully, most readers will never have to experience firsthand.

 

The Islamic University of Gaza - in 2023 and now

Eighteen months later, The Guardian has published a powerful report on the devastation to buildings and lives along a single street in Gaza. 'A street in Gaza, a map of dreams, and the people desperate to live' takes a close-up look at Gaza City’s main thoroughfare, Omar al-Mukhtar Street, aiming to show the universal through the particular.

The Guardian’s report begins with a story map, using satellite imagery to reveal the rubble surrounding the street. As you scroll, the map pans and zooms to various locations in the neighborhood. Before-and-after videos and imagery help explore the damage at key sites and communicate the profound sense of loss felt by the street’s residents.

By focusing on a single street, The Guardian’s report makes the vast and often overwhelming devastation in Gaza more tangible and intimate. Omar al-Mukhtar street becomes a microcosm of the wider destruction, allowing readers to connect personally with individual stories, shattered homes, and interrupted lives. This granular approach transforms data and statistics into human experiences, making the emotional cost of war harder to ignore. 

Italian Map Rot

If Your Year of Birth Starts with "21"

In a desperate attempt to cash in on a popular meme, I present to you: The Italian Brainrot Map.

Yesterday, I asked ChatGPT to generate a list of country names in the style of Italian Brainrot characters. A few minutes later, I had those names injected into an interactive map.

Trying to Justify Posting This:

Overall I'd say that ChatGPT's Italian Brainrot names are not as hilarious as I'd hoped. However some of you may be interested in how I managed to add the names to the map. 

The map leverages MapLibre’s powerful expression-based styling. Using the setLayoutProperty method, an expression is applied to the text-field property of label layers.

My map uses OpenFreeMap as the source for map tiles. The text-field properties for country place-name labels in OpenFreeMap are label_country_1, label_country_2, and label_country_3. Using these properties, my expression employs the match operator to look up each country’s English name (name_en) and replace it with a creatively "Italianized" Brainrot version. For countries not explicitly matched, a fallback ensures that the original names remain intact.

Tip: You can determine the properties of individual features in a vector tile style using the Maputnik visual style editor. Simply open the map tile layer in Maputnik and click on features on the map to discover the name of the layer and its properties.

Introducing ESA's Satellite Stories

The European Space Agency (ESA) has launched a new educational platform designed to explain the vital role that satellites and Earth observation play in advancing Earth science, combating climate change, and driving scientific research and technological innovation.

Edukeo uses Lobelia’s Globe Story Engine and TeroMaps framework to create immersive, interactive stories. These stories are brought to life through maps, video, animations, interactive graphics, and other engaging media. The platform is structured into chapters, each telling a unique story drawn from ESA’s Science for Society programme.

The platform has launched with four key chapters:

• Digital Twin Antarctica - created using satellite imagery and other observed data the DTA is a simulated model that allows scientists to explore Antarctica from anywhere in the world.
• Coastal Erosion - how satellite data can be used to track sea-level rise and fight coastal erosion around the world.
• Hydrology - how a Digital Twin Earth uses satellite data to understand how climate change is affecting the water cycle and leads to increased floods and droughts.
• Food Security and Crop Mapping - how mapping crops with earth observation can help to secure global food security.

These four stories are only the beginning. In the future many more stories will be added to edukeo. Edukeo represents a long-term commitment by ESA to foster greater awareness, accessibility, and engagement with Earth science, making complex topics understandable and relevant to everyday life. Each new chapter will explore a different aspect of how space-based technologies and Earth observation contribute to understanding our planet and solving global challenges.

Where Mamdani Beat Cuomo

The progressive Zohran Mamdani appears to have defeated Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary for New York City Mayor. The result may send shockwaves through the Democratic establishment, and other progressive candidates running in elections across the country will be keen to learn from Mamdani’s victory.

Many potential Democratic nominees will no doubt be poring over The New York Times’ Most Detailed Map of the NYC Mayoral Primary. This interactive map colors each electoral district based on whether Zohran Mamdani, Andrew M. Cuomo, or Brad Lander received the most votes in Tuesday’s primary. It also includes several filters that allow users to view the results by districts with majority White, Black, Hispanic, or Asian populations; by median income (lower, middle, and higher); and by population density. These tools enable users to dig into some of the underlying trends that shaped the primary race.

While the New York Times map includes filters for race, income, and population density, it does not offer one for median age - perhaps due to limitations in demographic data at the electoral district level. It has been widely reported that Mamdani performed particularly well among younger voters. To verify this claim, psephologists will need to examine opinion polling data more closely, where voter age information is more readily available.

Red Dots for Dialysis Decline

A third of dialysis clinics in America fail to meet federal standards. This map from CBS News shows you where.

The United States spends more on dialysis treatments than nearly any other country in the world. Yet despite this enormous financial outlay, it has the highest dialysis-related death rate among developed nations. A key reason for this disparity is that healthcare in the U.S. operates as a for-profit business. In other words the entire industry is designed not only to provide healthcare to patients but to maximise returns for shareholders. 

CBS News reports that one-third of dialysis clinics have failed to meet federal standards this year. A significant factor appears to be pressure from clinic owners to implement so-called "bazooka dialysis" - a high-turnover model that prioritizes quantity over quality. Under this model, clinics rush to treat as many patients as possible each day and, as a consequence, some patients do not receive the dialysis treatment that they need. 

To help the public understand the scope of the issue, CBS News has created an interactive map of nearly 7,500 dialysis clinics across the U.S. Clinics that failed to meet federal standards this year are marked in red. Users can search the map by clinic name or address. Clicking on a clinic's marker reveals its federal performance review score (a score of 55 or higher meets the standard).

Mapping the Cultural Impact of Gentrification

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) has released an interactive map which visualizes the gentrification of American cities over the last 50 years. Cities are constantly evolving. But behind many urban developments lies a deeper story of community transformation - one that often comes with a negative cost for the original residents.

The Displaced by Design interactive map is a groundbreaking tool that helps make sense of this complex process, offering a data-rich lens into five decades of gentrification and its impacts on American neighborhoods. The map visualizes 50 years of neighborhood change across U.S. urban areas, from 1970 to 2020, allowing users to explore how socioeconomic and demographic shifts have reshaped communities, often at the expense of long-standing, marginalized populations.

The map tracks neighborhood-level changes in:

• Race and ethnicity of residents
• Median income
• Home values
• Educational attainment

One of the key takeaways from the map is how the changes wrought by gentrification go beyond property values and demographics. They can also transform the cultural fabric of communities. This transformation is often seen most among the black population. 

From 1980 to 2020, 523 majority-Black neighborhoods experienced gentrification. A third underwent complete racial turnover, and nearly a quarter became racially mixed. This trend represents a loss of 261,000 Black residents from formerly majority-Black neighborhoods. The NCRC reports that "displacement rates could range higher, with a decrease of half a million Black people in all gentrifying neighborhoods."

Using the map you can zoom into cities across the United States to explore the historical data and demographic shifts over time. Buttons in the map sidebar allow you to see how income, housing prices, or racial composition evolved from 1970–2020 in your selected city.

The map has been released to complement the NCRC's full report Displaced by Design: Fifty years of gentrification and Black cultural displacement in US cities.

Google's AI Hurricane Predictor

Google has launched a new interactive map, Weather Lab: Cyclones, which shows AI-generated tropical cyclone forecasts and allows you to compare how different AI forecast models perform in comparison to  traditional physics-based models.

If you’ve ever wondered how different forecasting models "see" a storm before it hits, or how accurate those predictions really are, Weather Lab: Cyclones provides a powerful new way to explore just that. 

The centerpiece of Weather Lab: Cyclones is an interactive map that visualizes tropical cyclone tracks from both AI models and traditional physics-based models. It lets users explore the evolution of storms across time and across different predictive models.

Using the map you can select to view the historical tracks of hurricanes and toggle between different models to see how each predicted the path of a tropical cyclone. These comparisons allow you to evaluate how closely the AI models align with actual storm behavior and with more established forecasting systems.

Google is keen to point out that Weather Lab: Cyclones is experimental and it is not intended for public weather alerts or emergency planning. For official forecasts, you should always refer to national meteorological agencies.

Via: Webcurios

Paving Paradise for the Ultra Rich

Say Goodbye to Your Outdoor Life

The Wilderness Society has identified over 250 million acres of public land that Republicans are preparing to sell under new legislation. If the SENR Bill passes, then you can expect to spend a lot more time indoors.

Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act has already been dubbed a “Reverse Robin Hood Bill.” The legislation contains a range of measures explicitly designed to transfer wealth from everyday Americans to the ultra-rich. It would add trillions to the national debt while stripping 10–14 million Americans of health coverage - all to fund massive tax cuts for the wealthiest few.

In addition to its economic and healthcare impacts, the Senate Republicans have introduced their own version of the bill which will pave the way for the largest sale of public lands in U.S. history. Now millions of Americans stand to lose access to hiking, climbing, camping, hunting, and other outdoor recreational activities.

To see which local recreation areas, wilderness regions, and inventoried roadless areas are at risk, explore the Wilderness Society’s new interactive map showing the 250+ million acres of public lands eligible for sale under the SENR bill.

The map shows tracts controlled by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service - all with which could be up for potential sale. Alarmingly, even national monument lands and areas with traditional or sacred significance to Tribal Nations could be sold off to the highest bidder, with little to no public input.

To see what’s at stake in your area, explore the map. You can then contact your representatives about the bill's proposals using the Wilderness Society's handy online form.

Insurers Retreating From Climate-Risk Zones

For many Americans, one of the consequences of climate change is higher insurance premiums. In Homeowners Insurance in an Era of Climate Change, the Brookings Institution maps U.S. Treasury Federal Insurance Office data to show where home insurance is becoming more costly and harder to obtain for millions of Americans.

One way this is happening is through non-renewals of homeowners insurance. A non-renewal occurs when an insurance company decides not to continue a policy once it expires - usually because the property is deemed too risky to insure. This leaves homeowners scrambling to find new coverage, often at much higher prices or through limited options like state-run insurers.

The image above shows, on the left, Fire Hazard Severity Zones in California, side-by-side with home insurance non-renewal rates in the state. The dark blue areas on the Brookings Institution map (on the right) indicate higher rates of home insurance non-renewals. These areas appear to follow the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

The Sierra Nevada is heavily forested and therefore highly prone to wildfires, especially during California’s dry summer and fall seasons. This is clearly reflected in the fire hazard severity zones shown on the left. These maps suggest that insurance companies are significantly less likely to renew policies in high-risk wildfire areas due to the increasing frequency and cost of wildfire-related claims.

The Brookings Institution map also highlights a high rate of home insurance non-renewals along the Atlantic coast. This is likely driven by increased risks from hurricanes and rising sea levels. Interestingly, Florida does not show a particularly high rate of non-renewals on this map. This is largely because many private home insurance policies in the state have already been non-renewed in recent years or shifted to state-run insurers, such as the Citizens Property Insurance Corporation.

The Reforestation Interactive Map

The Nature Conservancy has released a new interactive map identifying 195 million hectares around the world where forest cover could be restored.

"Reforesting these areas could capture 2.2 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year, equivalent to removing 481 million passenger vehicles driven for one year."

Click on a country on the Reforestation Hub map to see how much land could be reforested, how many tonnes of CO₂ this would capture annually, and how that compares to the annual emissions from passenger vehicles.

The map is based on new research conducted by the Future Ecosystems for Africa program at the University of the Witwatersrand. The study identified areas where tree restoration could deliver maximum climate benefits without harming communities or ecosystems. All land selected for reforestation had to meet three key criteria:

• High Tree Cover Potential - Only areas capable of supporting 60% or more tree cover were considered.
• Current Land Use - Areas already forested or permanently covered by water (as of 2020) were excluded.
• Precautionary Safeguards - Agricultural land was excluded to avoid impacts on food security.

By selecting the View US Site button, you can explore the reforestation potential in each U.S. county. This version of the map is based on studies conducted by The Nature Conservancy. More information on the methodology used for the U.S. map can be found on its About page.

When Ocean Currents Collapse

AMOC Collapse Visualization

A new study suggests that global warming could paradoxically plunge Europe into dramatic cooling, leading to severe winter cold spells, more intense storms, and reduced rainfall. Average winter temperatures could plunge, sea ice could spread as far south as the British Isles, and nearly half the year could see temperatures below freezing.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is one of the most important systems regulating Earth’s climate. Acting like a massive conveyor belt, AMOC moves warm water from the tropics northward and returns colder, denser water back south. This cycle drives weather patterns, moderates temperatures in Europe and North America, and helps maintain ecological and societal stability across much of the planet.

But that stability is under threat.

Due to rising global temperatures and the melting of polar ice, there’s growing scientific concern that the AMOC could weaken significantly - or even collapse entirely. If that happens, the resulting climate chaos could be both severe and long-lasting.

The Consequences of Collapse

To better understand and communicate what could happen if the AMOC collapses a new interactive map has been developed to visualize different scenarios. Built on state-of-the-art climate modeling from the 2025 study European Temperature Extremes under Different AMOC Scenarios in the Community Earth System Model by René van Westen and W. Baatsen, the tool allows users to explore projected regional impacts under different levels of AMOC weakening.

The AMOC Collapse Visualization map is based on a new study European Temperature Extremes under Different AMOC Scenarios in the Community Earth System Model by van Westen & Baatsen (2025). The study uses complex climate simulations to examine a scenario in which AMOC weakens by 80% in a world that is already 2°C warmer than pre-industrial levels.

In Europe, the cooling effect from a collapsed AMOC could override the general warming trend - creating a landscape of colder winters, more snow and ice, and frequent cold extremes. For example, London could face winter extremes as low as -19°C (-2.2°F), while Oslo might endure temperatures as low as -48°C (-55°F).

In the United States temperatures would generally continue to rise, the eastern seaboard would see the dual threat of sea level rise and stronger winter storms. Elsewhere in the world, the disintegration of oceanic balance could alter tropical monsoons and reduce the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon - a dangerous feedback loop that could accelerate global climate change.

When is the sun directly overhead?

The longest day of the year occurs this coming Saturday. In the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice is on June 21st. This is the day when the subsolar point - the location on Earth where the Sun is directly overhead at solar noon - reaches its northernmost position, directly above the Tropic of Cancer.

The subsolar point moves north and south throughout the year as the Earth orbits the Sun. At the summer solstice, it's at its highest point in the Northern Hemisphere, marking the beginning of summer and the day with the most daylight. Conversely, during the winter solstice around December 21st, the subsolar point is at its southernmost position, directly above the Tropic of Capricorn, resulting in the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.

The animated map above shows the subsolar point moving between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn from June 16th (today) through the winter solstice. You can explore this for yourself on Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn - an interactive map that displays both tropics and the subsolar point for any day of the year. Use the day slider in the map sidebar to select a date. The line indicates where on Earth the Sun is directly overhead at noon for the selected day.

By coincidence, the road on which I live is perfectly aligned with the rising sun on the morning of the summer solstice. I discovered this fascinating detail on Solstice Streets, an interactive map that highlights roads in cities around the world which align with the sunrise on either the summer or winter solstice. The site blends astronomy with urban design, revealing how some modern streets unintentionally - or perhaps in some cases intentionally - mirror ancient alignments that celebrate solar events. 

Prosecuting Crimes Against Humanity

The Universal Jurisdiction Interactive Map (UJIM), developed by TRIAL International, is a comprehensive and accessible digital tool designed to track and display criminal cases related to serious international crimes such as genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture, enforced disappearances, and the crime of aggression.

Universal Jurisdiction is a legal principle that allows states to prosecute individuals for such crimes, regardless of where the crime occurred or the nationality of the perpetrators or victims. High-profile cases -such as the arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet - have demonstrated both its potential and its controversy, triggering legislative pushbacks in countries like Spain and Belgium. Nevertheless, there has been a steady global rise in trials based on universal jurisdiction, reflecting a growing commitment to international accountability.

The map reveals that European countries have carried out by far the most prosecutions under Universal Jurisdiction, with Germany and France leading the way. According to the map’s About page, “Germany has the highest number of convictions for international crimes,” while “France has opened the most investigations on economic actors.”

The UJIM catalogs cases from 196 countries and is updated annually.

800K Galaxies - 1 Map

The newly unveiled COSMOS-Web is the largest, most detailed map of the universe ever created. The map plots nearly 800,000 galaxies, and almost spans the entire 13.8-billion-year history of the cosmos.

The map is the result of a multinational collaboration led by astrophysicists at UC Santa Barbara and the Rochester Institute of Technology - using data collected by the James Webb Space Telescope. The telescope’s powerful infrared capabilities allowed researchers to peer deeper into space - and further back in time - than ever before, capturing galaxies from just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. 

The interactive COSMOS-Web viewer offers a groundbreaking way to explore data from the James Webb Space Telescope firsthand. Users can pan and zoom across deep space, tracing the structure of the universe and inspecting individual galaxies. While the map answers some long-standing questions, it also raises profound new ones, challenging current models of cosmic evolution and opening the door to discoveries about dark matter, galaxy formation, and the very origins of light. By making this enormous dataset publicly accessible, the COSMOS team aims to empower astronomers around the world - from seasoned researchers to students - to investigate the early universe in new ways.

You can also explore the universe interactively using:  

• ESA Star Mapper - an interactive map visualizing 59,921 stars from the Hipparcos Catalogue
• Hubble Skymap - NASA's interactive Hubble-eye view of observable galaxies, stars, and nebulae

Discover the Toxin Polluters Near You

ToxOnline is an interactive map that allows you to see which facilities are releasing toxins in your area. Simply enter your address into the map to instantly discover where and how toxic chemicals are being released near your home.

The map displays markers for all facilities reporting toxic releases and includes a heat map showing the average toxic release in the searched area. By clicking on a facility marker, you can view its name, a list of released chemicals, and the average release (in pounds). After selecting a marker, you can click on the Facility menu option to view a graph of the facility’s average yearly releases, details about the primary release method, and a chemical checklist.

ToxOnline draws from a decade’s worth of EPA-reported data (2013–2023) for most views, and the most recent 2023 data for national-level statistics. This data comes from the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), a nationwide program that tracks the management and release of certain toxic chemicals by industrial facilities. The TRI includes chemicals known to have serious health or environmental effects, such as causing cancer, respiratory issues, or harming ecosystems.

The Real-Time 15 City Map

The concept of the '15 Minute City' aims to make urban living more livable and sustainable by ensuring that all essential individual needs can be met without reliance on a car or public transport. It's a very simple idea: ideally, an individual's essential needs should be accessible within a short travel distance.

Such a simple concept deserves a suitably simple-to-understand map. CThood Athens is precisely that - a map that both brings the 15 Minute City concept to life and visualizes which areas of Athens come closest to meeting its requirements.

At its core, CThood Athens uses open-source data and tools to illustrate how far you can walk from any given point in the city (within 5 or 15 minutes) and what types of essential destinations lie within that reach. As you hover over the map, it automatically and dynamically shows you how far you can walk in 15 minutes (or 5). Clicking on a location reveals how many amenities are accessible in that time. Further, clicking the 'Show Other' button breaks down these amenities into categories (e.g., the number of green spaces, supermarkets, pharmacies, etc.).

The interactivity of CThood is both engaging and informative. Users can toggle layers, filter by place type, and customize accessibility criteria. The inclusion of statistical indicators like the Gini Index and Lorenz Curve adds analytical depth, transforming the map into a dynamic research and planning tool.

CThood is a great example of how open data and thoughtful design can be combined to support more equitable, walkable cities. I assume the intention is to apply the same methodology to other cities and create interactive 15 Minute City maps for additional locations.

You can also find 15 Minute City visualizations for a number of other cities using the Maps Mania 15minutecity tag.

Via: quantum of sollazzo

Like Google My Maps but Better

Tasmap is a powerful platform that allows anyone to create personalized, interactive maps - like Google My Maps, but better!

To help you build your own custom maps, Tasmap includes built-in AI support. This means you can get started quickly by simply telling Tasmap what you want to include on your map.

For example, I gave Tasmap the following prompt:

Help me create a map of filming locations in Los Angeles, marking the locations of famous movie scenes and nearby places worth visiting.

In response, Tasmap generated LA on Location: A Cinematic Journey - an interactive map featuring around 40 locations used in famous films. 

The map includes an impressive sidebar article that introduces the locations in themed paragraphs. For example the concluding paragraph highlights several restaurants and eateries featured in movies (including Pat & Lorraine’s Coffee Shop in Eagle Rock, where the crew from Reservoir Dogs had their pre-heist breakfast).

One major flaw with Tasmap, however, is the lack of marker content. When you click on a marker, a small information window appears with options to open the location in Google Maps or get directions. But, bafflingly, there’s no contextual information about why the marker is there. For example: “Pat & Lorraine’s Coffee Shop – this is where the crew from Reservoir Dogs had their pre-heist breakfast.” That kind of detail is completely absent.

This omission also seems to persist in the Tasmap editor. While the editor allows you to add markers to your map, it doesn’t appear to offer a way to attach any descriptive content to them. So although it's easy to add markers, there’s no way to indicate what each one represents. At the very least, markers should have a title (which could appear on hover), but ideally, users should be able to click on a marker to open a window containing user-generated content.

This niggle aside, Tasmap is an impressive and thoughtfully designed platform for creating personalized, interactive maps. Its standout feature - built-in AI support - makes the process accessible to everyone, even those with no prior experience in mapping or design. With just a simple prompt, users can generate richly themed maps that are both visually appealing and easy to share.

EthnoGuessr

EthnoGuessr is a geography-based guessing game inspired by GeoGuessr, but instead of identifying real-world locations from street views, players are shown composite facial images representing average features of various ethnic groups. 

The facial averages (sourced from anthropological website Human Phenotypes) serve as clues. Players must guess the historical geographic origin of the ethnic group by selecting a location on a world map. After each guess, the game reveals the group's name, origin, and educational background, awarding points based on the accuracy of the guess. A new set of 10 ethnic groups is presented daily.

Handled insensitively, EthnoGuessr could raise concerns. Reducing complex, diverse populations to visual averages might unintentionally promote stereotyping. However, the game aims to counterbalance this by providing detailed context - including history, migration patterns, and cultural information - turning each guess into a learning opportunity.

By blending anthropology, genetics, and geography, EthnoGuessr encourages players to explore human diversity in a structured way. Still, those uncomfortable with a game based on ethnicity might prefer DoggoGuessr, a more lighthearted alternative where players identify the geographical origins of randomized dog breeds.

Is this the future of Street View?

Odyssey has released a demo of its new AI technology that enables users to explore 3D video environments in real time.

Odyssey is similar to Google Maps Street View in that it allows users to visually explore real-world environments. However, instead of navigating through static 360-degree photos, Odyssey uses AI-generated streaming video that responds dynamically to user input.

The result is a much more interactive and immersive 3D world - like stepping into a living, evolving version of Street View, where the environment can change and unfold as you move, almost like a video game. Unlike Street View, which relies on stitched-together images, Odyssey’s model generates new video frames on the fly, simulating realistic motion and spatial consistency in response to user movements.

The Odyssey Interactive Video demo includes a number of 360-degree scenes that you can freely explore. Most reviews I've read emphasize its potential for creating 3D worlds for games. However, I think there’s also clear potential for this technology to enhance mapping, for example as an advanced Street View layer. Currently, the interactive 3D environments produced by Odyssey are fairly low in resolution, though generally clear. It would be interesting to see whether the technology could generate higher-resolution models if it were trained on Google Street View imagery.

Via: Webcurios

Mapping A Billion Birds

The ADS-B Massive Visualizer now maps 1.5 billion eBird observations. This powerful, interactive geospatial tool shows where and when different bird species have been observed by eBird users around the world.

At first glance, the map may look like just a collection of dots - but click the selector button (the square with an arrow in the bottom left corner), and you can draw a region to explore in more detail. A sidebar will appear, listing all the bird species recorded in the selected area. For example, around my own neighborhood, the map reveals sightings of the Common Wood Pigeon, European Robin, Rock Pigeon, Eurasian Blackbird, Great Tit, House Sparrow, Eurasian Blue Tit, and Black-headed Gull (though oddly, no Parakeets or Magpies).

The map also supports filtering results using ClickHouse SQL, a dialect of SQL designed specifically for the ClickHouse database. It can be a little tricky to use, but I was able to run a few queries by selecting some of the provided examples and simply replacing the 'vernacularname' with the common name of the bird species I wanted to visualize.

The ADS-B Massive Visualizer also allows you to explore a number of other large databases. These include Planes (130 billion records), Places (from Foursquare), and Photos (seemingly sourced from Flickr).

Mapping Whale Superhighways

The WWF has launched a new interactive map Blue Corridors that brings 30 years of whale migration data to life. Using the map you can:

🛰️ See where whales travel.

⚠️ Learn what’s putting them at risk.

💙 Discover how we can protect them.

The new Blue Corridors interactive map is designed to support global whale conservation efforts by visualizing decades of scientific data in a way that is accessible, actionable, and urgently relevant. At its core, the map transforms over 30 years of satellite tracking and research into a compelling, interactive experience that allows you to explore whale migration routes, pinpoint major threats, and examine conservation priorities across ocean basins. 

The map is built on 1,429 satellite tracks and over 3.2 million kilometers of migratory data and integrates inputs from more than 50 different research institutions. The platform overlays whale movements with human activities such as shipping, fishing, and pollution to identify high-risk zones, supporting data-driven decisions to mitigate threats like ship strikes and entanglements.

You can interact with the map by species, threats, or regions. The sidebar menu also includes links to news and stories about whale conservation, whale migratory routes and the threats to marine environments.

Canadian Wildfire Smoke Forecasts

The wildfires currently raging in Canada have forced the evacuation of over 25,000 people across Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Manitoba has been the hardest hit, with entire communities like Flin Flon and Cranberry Portage forced to flee. The smoke from the wildfires is now affecting air quality not just in Canada, but in several U.S. states.

You can use Smoke Forecast to view BlueSky Canada smoke forecasts on an interactive map. These forecasts are produced by the Weather Forecast Research Team at the University of British Columbia, with support from multiple agencies. Utilizing information on fire locations, sizes, and atmospheric conditions, the map shows areas likely to be affected by wildfire smoke and estimates associated smoke concentrations.

Using the map, you can view hourly, daily average, and daily maximum ground-level PM2.5 concentrations - the fine particulate matter that poses significant health risks, especially to vulnerable populations. These forecasts can help individuals and public health agencies prepare for and respond to poor air quality conditions by providing timely, localized data. 

The Canadian Wildland Fire Information System's Interactive Map shows the current danger levels across Canada. The map also allows you to view the current estimated fire perimeters in near-real time and the locations of active fires.

Poland's Political Partition Persists

Here are two maps of Poland. The map on the left shows the partitioned Poland of 1815–1918 (from Lessons from the Partitions of Poland). The map on the right is Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza's interactive map of this week's 2025 Polish Election.

It has long been a tradition, after every Polish election, for observers to note that current voting patterns in the country still seem to follow the country's old imperial borders. Back in 2013, Irena Grosfeld and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya wrote that the spatial pattern of the 2007 Polish election was “determined, to a large extent, by the Partitions of Poland (1772–1918).” In The Past in the Polish Present, the two professors argue that the very different economic and social policies pursued by Russia, Prussia, and Austria during their control of Polish territories for over a century have left a persistent legacy. This legacy once again appears to have been evident in this week’s Polish election.

In Do Poland’s 19th-century partitions still influence elections today?, Katarzyna Skiba takes a closer look at this apparent connection between modern Polish political beliefs and “the ongoing legacies of empire.” Her examination of Polish politics includes several critiques of what some consider an overly simplistic comparison.

Via: Datawrapper's Data Viz Dispatch

Hunger Maps

The Hunger Map by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations is a visual tool that illustrates the prevalence of undernourishment across the world. It visualizes the geographic distribution of hunger and helps monitor global food insecurity trends.

Hunger Map allows users to explore data across multiple geographic scales, including countries, subregions, and regions, providing a comprehensive view of where hunger is most prevalent and how it varies across different parts of the world. The Hunger Map also includes two main views 'Undernourishment' and 'Food Insecurity', and a timeline. The map’s timeline is set to a three-year average, which helps smooth out annual fluctuations and provide a more stable picture of food insecurity. This approach is particularly useful for assessing long-term trends and guiding policy decisions based on sustained patterns rather than temporary spikes or declines.

The World Food Programme's (WFP) HungerMap Live is a real-time, interactive visualization of hunger and food insecurity across 94 countries. At its core, the map highlights the prevalence of insufficient food consumption, using a color-coded system where red indicates areas of severe hunger and green shows relatively food-secure regions. 

The WFP map also shows levels of acute and chronic malnutrition, and the risk of inadequate micronutrient intake, offering a multidimensional view of food security. Beyond food consumption data, the map integrates key drivers and contextual factors such as conflict, climate hazards, and economic indicators like inflation, exchange rates, and trade balances. 

In regions where direct data collection is limited, WFP uses machine learning models trained on historic and environmental data to generate predictive estimates of food security. These estimates are updated frequently using inputs like rainfall, vegetation levels, and market conditions. This combination of actual and predicted data enables a dynamic, detailed understanding of hunger trends, helping humanitarian organizations and governments make more timely and informed decisions to respond to crises.

The Start of Hurricane Season

Hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean officially begins on June 1 and ends on November 30 each year. The peak of hurricane activity typically occurs from mid-August to late October, with September 10 often cited as the statistical peak of the season. During this time, meteorologists and emergency planners closely monitor tropical systems and prepare for potential impacts to the U.S., Central America, the Caribbean, and parts of Canada.

To coincide with the start of the 2025 hurricane season, 157mph.com has released a new series of annual and decade-based hurricane maps. The Season Data maps allow users to view all hurricane tracks for each year since 2000, while the Decade maps provide historical context with storm data going back to the 1850s. For example, the animated GIF at the top of this post cycles through the hurricane tracks from each year in the 1990s.

On the yearly maps, users can explore all hurricane tracks for a specific year, with the ability to filter by storm type (hurricanes, tropical storms, or tropical depressions), landfall status, or individual storm name. Each track includes circular timestamps that can be clicked to reveal wind speed and atmospheric pressure at that specific point. These circles are color-coded to indicate the storm category at each timestamp.

You can discover how many hurricanes have passed near your home over the decades using StarNews’s Hurricanes that passed near me map. Simply enter your address to view the tracks of all hurricanes and tropical storms that have occurred near your location since the mid-19th century.

NOAA’s Historical Hurricane Tracks map also provides access to global hurricane data dating back as far as 1842. Using this interactive tool, you can search and visualize hurricane tracks by storm name, location, or date. For example, entering a storm like Hurricane Sandy (2012) displays its full track on the map. Data points along the track allow you to explore daily details such as wind speed and atmospheric pressure.

NOAA’s database includes records for more than 13,000 storms.