Freaking awesome! As you probably know, the Kepler Mission has recently found a huge number of exoplanets, bringing the current total to 1,235 exoplanet candidates. This is simply an amazing feat, and proof that we are living in amazing times. Fifty-four exoplanet candidates are in the habitable zone (the area around a star at which you can have liquid water), and five of those are near-Earth size (less than double the size).
The truly excellent Jer Thorp created this visualization for boing boing. It's a visualization of the Kepler data, and it is really beautiful. The way the data forms the structure of the graph really grabs attention. Bump it up to HD and enjoy:
Kepler Exoplanet Candidates from blprnt on Vimeo.
The great thing about Kepler is that the data is so huge that scientists need help sorting through it. So Zooniverse has a project Planet Hunters where you can help.
Local Consumption
Credit: Local First
A very beautiful graph on one of my favorite topics, food politics. Found on TreeHugger. Shows the importance of shopping locally. It's great to think in a global sense, but when it comes down to it you've got to support your local community if you want to have a healthy economy. But really, what I want to concentrate on is the beauty and effectiveness of this graph. It's simple but straightforward and it gets across its message at just a glance.