Hello and welcome to another edition of The Crunch!
This week’s newsletter is going to be slightly different as the longlist for the 2024 Information Is Beautiful awards was released this week. We’ve trawled through the list to find our favourites.
But first … to the sea floor
Our colleagues in the UK have released two great stories from the ocean’s depths. The first is an explainer about mining the seafloor with lots of lovely visuals.
This map gives you an idea of the scope of the issue:
We covered seafloor mining in the Pacific way back in 2021. Scientists were already warning that we could lose marine species – even before we knew anything about them.
The next story follows the “shadow fleets” that seem to be attacking Europe’s undersea internet cables, below.
This story is chock full of great interactive maps and animations. I am very jealous.
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This information is beautiful
There is a lot of amazing work in the longlist to explore, so we really encourage you to dive in for yourself. Our gender pay gap explorer and One Big Chart on the disproportionate impact of family violence also made the cut.
But here are some of the projects that jumped out at us (please note these aren’t exhaustive lists, and we’re trying to avoid stories that have already appeared in this newsletter – hence no AFL mullets).
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Josh’s picks:
Shipping stuff around Africa emits a lot of pollution
I’m a sucker for an illustrated story, and this is yet another brilliant one from Reuters. It’s also a great example of following a counterfactual – looking at increased emissions once ships had to avoid the Suez canal after Houthi militants started attacking commercial ships. The design is lovely, as is using the Status of Liberty as a comparison for emissions.
Some other favourites (in no particular order):
A deep dive into what’s driving up burger prices (in Australia)
A gloriously illustrated history and explanation of ancient Chinese hanfu
Visualising the issue of not having enough clothes – an issue I can’t really relate to, but I love how extra this is
The monochroming of America – someone should do this in Australia
How the worldview of artificial intelligence is created (in German)
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Nick’s picks:
Is the love song dying?
This is typically excellent work by contributors to the Pudding, which follows the publication’s formula of using data to tell a story that involves an “aha!” moment. Here’s the direct link and the IIB entry showcase.
I had a lot of trouble choosing only five entries for my picks, so here are five dot points loosely grouped into themes in no particular order:
This investigation into the hairstyles of people who get swooped by magpies – a natural hazard in Australia – is a) awesome and b) has a great chart made out of Lego and c) is extra amazing because it was done by an eight-year-old. I particularly loved this quote from Emma, who said: “To show the survey results, I decided to use Lego to illustrate my data because I didn’t know how to use Excel.”
Nice maps: a map of forest cover of New Zealand, and a map that was specifically designed to appeal to me as it combines whisky, Scottish author Iain Banks and nice cartography.
Things I liked but can’t explain why: are socks really hard to knit, and five droughts that changed history.
Projects involving audio: heat chords: strains of stress, and an underground journey.
A series of good charts on last year, explaining why it was a year that shook the world.
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Off the charts
This chart speaks for itself – the US tariff rate on aluminium and steel imported from Canada across one day (11 March).
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