A Data Visualization Newsletter

Ever wonder what area of New York constitutes Bushwick? Or Murray Hill? In an attempt to define each of New York’s neighborhoods, The New York Times asked New Yorkers to draw their neighborhood’s boundaries and submit its name. The resulting interactive map is based on 37,000 responses and includes more than 350 distinct neighborhoods.

In the last 12 months — and especially in light of the drama at OpenAI last week — artificial intelligence has officially gone mainstream. Retool surveyed over 1,500 tech people, including software engineers, business leaders, designers, and more, to understand how they are using AI. They’ve compiled the results in this interactive and highly engaging report.

Throughout the course of history — from the ancient Greeks to World War I battles — pigeons have been used to communicate news across long distances. And while carrier pigeons have been phased out by technological advances like the Internet, that doesn’t mean they’re completely useless. As The Washington Post shows, pigeons may still be faster for carrying large amounts of information in rural parts of the U.S. if your internet is slow enough.

Back in August, a raging wildfire overran the historic Hawaiian town of Lahaina and caused massive amounts of damage. At least 99 people died, making it the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century. In this piece, The New York Times uses video evidence, data, and interviews to reconstruct the events that led up to such a tragedy.

At the bottom of the Pacific Ocean lies an estimated 21 billion tons of potato-shaped rocks known as polymetallic nodules. These nodules contain many of the metals needed to produce lithium-ion batteries — like manganese, nickel, and copper — and fuel the energy transition. But many scientists and large corporations have called for these nodules to remain undisturbed until the impacts on the ocean’s ecosystem are better understood.