Mapping

During the holiday season, Kim, Liz and I are taking a short break from blogging. We are posting some of our favorite posts from the past year. Here’s one of them, originally posted on June 26, 2015: By Kim Krisberg A common hurdle in the field of occupational health and safety is delivering what can sometimes be life-saving information to the people who need it most. After all, not all employers are amenable to workplace health and safety education. But what if safety advocates could find and connect with the most at-risk workers out in the community? Perhaps even reach vulnerable workers…
A common hurdle in the field of occupational health and safety is delivering what can sometimes be life-saving information to the people who need it most. After all, not all employers are amenable to workplace health and safety education. But what if safety advocates could find and connect with the most at-risk workers out in the community? Perhaps even reach vulnerable workers with safety education before they experience an injury at work? New research from the University of Illinois-Chicago School of Public Health could help safety advocates do just that. Linda Forst, director of the school…
When Bethany Boggess first debuted her online mapping project, she didn’t expect it to attract so much attention. But within just six months of its launch, people from all over the world are sending in reports and helping her build a dynamic picture of the lives and deaths of workers. The project is called the Global Worker Watch and it’s quite literally a living map of worker fatalities and catastrophes from around the globe. When you go to the site, you’ll see a world map speckled with blue dots, each representing a reported occupational death, illness or disaster. Here are just a few I…
by Kim Krisberg Many of us probably look into cyberspace and are overwhelmed with its unwieldy amounts of never-ending information. John Brownstein, on the other hand, sees points on a map. Brownstein is the co-founder of HealthMap, a team of researchers, epidemiologists and software developers at Children's Hospital Boston who use online sources to track disease outbreaks and deliver real-time surveillance on emerging public health threats. But instead of depending wholly on traditional methods of public health data collection and official reports to create maps, HealthMap enlists helps…
My Very Excellent Mother Just Served us Nine Pizzas. My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming Planets. My Very Early Morning Jam Sandwiches Usually Nauseate People. Mon Vieux Tu M'as Jeté Sur Une Nouvelle Planète! -- Various mnemonic devices for remembering the order of the nine planets I just found out that Mercury is shrinking. The planet, already our most diminutive neighbor, has lost around 3 miles of its 3,000 mile diameter in its life, or one tenth of one percent.This may not sound like much, but in geological terms, three miles is immensely significant. This boggling fact was…