Evolution of race categories in U.S. Census forms

For The New York Times, K.K. Rebecca Lai and Jennifer Medina show the changing checkboxes over the past couple centuries:

Over the centuries, the census has evolved from one that specified broad categories — primarily “free white” people and “slaves” — to one that attempts to encapsulate the country’s increasingly complex demographics. The latest adaptation proposed by the Biden administration in January seeks to allow even more race and ethnicity options for people to describe themselves than the 2020 census did.

What we measure and how we measure is a reflection of what we’ve cared about.

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Map of the 2023 solar eclipse

The moon is going to get in the way of the sun this Saturday. For The New York Times, Jonathan Corum has the map of when and how much sun coverage we’ll see in the western hemisphere.

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Cooling a city

Tall buildings in dense cities can trap heat and restrict air flow, which can make living in an area really hot. It’s worse when the environment as a whole is also warming. So Singapore is spending a lot to cool down their cities. For The New York Times, Pablo Robles, Josh Holder, and Jeremy White illustrate the measures Singapore has put in place.

I always appreciate the scrolly transitions from real life imagery with photos or video to the more abstract illustrations. It’s a good mechanism to keep concepts rooted in reality.

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Declining groundwater

The New York Times analyzed water levels across the country since 1920. In more recent years, the levels aren’t looking great if we want to keep growing crops. An animated map using angled lines shows the fluctuations and decline.

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Passenger planes flying too close

Sometimes passenger planes get a little too close to each other on takeoff and landing due to miscommunication and understaffing from air traffic control. From The New York Times, near collisions might happen more often than the steady flight captain’s overhead voice would have you believe.

A series of animated flight paths, albeit sped up, show the close calls.

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Hip-hop’s influence on the English language

For The New York Times, Miles Marshall Lewis highlights the etymology of five words in the English language heavily influenced by hip-hop: dope, woke, cake, wildin’, and ghost. A fun design using GIFs, images, and rotating discs you can click for music take you through the history.

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Age shifts around the world

The world is getting older overall. For The New York Times, Lauren Leatherby broke it down by country with a set of animated frequency trails, along with charts for more demographic shifts. I like it.

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Focusing on the majority of students not affected by affirmative action

For NYT Opinion, Richard Arum and Mitchell L. Stevens, with graphics by Quoctrung Bui, turn their attention to the four-year colleges that accept most applicants, which is most schools:

While the Supreme Court’s decision is a blow to Black and Hispanic students who dream of attending the most competitive universities, improving and better supporting the institutions that serve the lion’s share of students of color will do far more to advance the cause of racial equality in this country than anything that admissions officers can do in Cambridge, Palo Alto and Chapel Hill.

The selective schools get all the attention, but there are a surprising percentage of programs that accept just about everyone. The beeswarm bubbles fill to the edge of the screen to highlight the point.

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Noise and health

The New York Times explores how noise impacts health:

Anyone who lives in a noisy environment, like the neighborhoods near this Brooklyn highway, may feel they have adapted to the cacophony. But data shows the opposite: Prior noise exposure primes the body to overreact, amplifying the negative effects.

I’m going to use this for the new reason my kids need quiet time.

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