Nov

29th 2007

Highspeed Rail Plans for the U.S.

Filed Under United States | Leave a Comment

Popular mechanics has an article in their December issue that provides an overview of highspeed rail plans for the United States.  The article looks at steel-wheel and maglev lines as a possible solution for easing the air and roadway gridlock.  The second page of the article has an interactive map showing proposed high speed rails projects across the country.  Most of the proposed projects are along the east side of the country with a few projects in the Washington/Oregon area and California. 

Nov

28th 2007

What American Accent Do You Have?

Filed Under Offbeat | Leave a Comment

Take this fun quiz to see where your American accent comes from.  The thirteen question quiz asks you to select from a list of choices to see how closely you pronounce various words before calculating a result of what region your accent most matches. 

Nov

27th 2007

Books about maps

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William Grimes over at the New York Times has published a review of books relating to cartography and geography in his latest column (published November 23, 2007) entitled “From the Glove Compartment to the Shelf.” The books presented run the plethora from the romantic novel by Béa Gonzalez called the “The Mapmaker’s Opera” to the newly released Transit Maps of the World the article glosses over some interesting cartographic reads both fiction and non-fiction.  The article swiftly moves from book to book so the list of books mentioned at the end is a handy reference.

Nov

26th 2007

Longest Avian Non-Stop Flight

Filed Under Current Events, Ecology | Leave a Comment

E7 is a female bar-tailed godwit who has earned herself the distinction of the longest non-stop flight recorded for a land bird. 

nonstopflight.jpg

 

According to scientists at the USGS who tracked E7 using a satellite transmitted that she was fitted with in New Zealand:

On March 17, E7 departed Miranda on the North Island of New Zealand and flew nonstop to Yalu Jiang, China. She completed the 6,300-mile-long flight in about eight days. There E7 settled in for a 5-week-long layover before departing for breeding grounds to nest.

On the evening of May 1, she headed east out over the Sea of Japan and the North Pacific. Eventually turning east, E7 headed northeast toward Alaska, crossing the end of the Alaska Peninsula. She was on her way to her eventual nesting area on the Yukon-Kuskokwim River Delta in western Alaska. E7 also completed this flight without stopping, covering some 4,500 miles in five days.

Researchers then tracked E7 to the coast of the Yukon Delta where she joined other godwits preparing for their return flight to New Zealand.

E7, and the location of other Bar-Tailed Godwits currently being tracked, can be viewed from the “Where are the birds now?” map located on the USGS site. 

Source: A Nonstop Journey: Bird Completes Epic Flight From Pacific Alaska to New Zealand (seen via All Points Blog)

Nov

22nd 2007

Panoramas from around the world

Filed Under Travel, World | Leave a Comment

An interesting site for armchair travelers is the Panoramic Earth site.  The site is driven by users who can submit their own 360 panoramic images from sites of interest located around the world.  There are currently over 1,400 panoramic images that users can access by either drilling down through the Google Map application, selecting from the highlighted places list or through search results.  Each panoramic is accompanied by text describing the location.  Click through the Google Maps application to find additional nearby panoramics.

Nov

16th 2007

Geo World Bank

Filed Under Google Maps, World | Leave a Comment

The World Bank has teamed up with Google to offer an interactive mapping application that displays financial and demographic statistics by country.  Visitors can either select a country via the drop down list presented or click on one of the markers on the map.  Countries are color coded by markers showing low, middle and high income.  Clicking each country opens up a tabbed window that provides detailed statistics, news items and project information.

geobank.jpg

Nov

16th 2007

Learner Interactive

Filed Under Education | Leave a Comment

Created with funding from Annenberg Media, the Learner.org site offers a range of interactive tutorials. The site contains some interesting lessons presented in a dynamic format. Some of the lesson plans that would interest geography buffs are:

  • United States History Map
    Learn about the geography and the history of the U.S.
  • Weather
    Learn about weather systems, try your hand at storm chasing and learn about forecasting the weather
  • Dynamic Earth
    Learn about the geological process of the earth.

There are many other interactive lessons covering a range of subjects: math, languages, culture, art, history and science.

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