Category Archives: Formats

IEEE Spectrum, News

EVs Move Downmarket at Detroit Auto Show

Carmakers are falling over themselves to announce full-electric, hybrid, and alternative-fuel vehicles at this year’s Detroit auto show. Chevrolet announced a concept for a mid-range fully electric car, the 200-mile-range Bolt, that might cost around $37,500 before tax credits in its 2017 lineup. The Bolt, designed by an Australian subsidiary of GM, will use a battery under development by LG that has a less block-like design than conventional battery packs and could offer carmakers more design flexibility.

The only current widely distributed electric car in that price range, the 84-mile range Nissan Leaf, will see “a lot of enhancements,” in time to compete with the Bolt, says Nissan-Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn. Other companies, such as BMW and Audi, are also commercializing full EVs, but the Chevrolet announcement is a sign that mainstream American carmakers are now stepping into the fray.

Read the rest of this blog post at IEEE Spectrum’s Cars That Think blog: [html].

Managua, Nature, News

Nicaragua defies canal protests

Nicaragua has great expectations for the Grand Canal, a US$50-billion, 5-year project to link its Caribbean and Pacific coasts with a 280-kilometre waterway. President Daniel Ortega and other supporters of the canal, who celebrated the start of construction on 22 December, say that it will generate much-needed income for residents of the second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Continue reading Nicaragua defies canal protests →

Features, Oaxaca, PBS NOVA Next

Building a New Economy on Soda Bottles and a 3D Printer

On a steep road on the outskirts of Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico, a low buzz and plastic fumes emanate from a white house. A ribbed white paper tube snakes out of a window on the building, exhaling a light smoke which mixes with fumes from nearby open-air cooks and the sooty exhaust of rumbling, unmuffled bus engines. Inside, the tube is attached to a machine that’s gobbling plastic flakes—which can come from used drink bottles—through a funnel also made from a plastic drink bottle. At the other end of the machine, a spinning wheel draws out the fresh-melted polymer into a black filament just three millimeters wide and value hundreds of times what it was worth in in bottle form. Continue reading Building a New Economy on Soda Bottles and a 3D Printer →

Data visualization, Nature Outlook

A preventable cancer

2 Comments

I reported and wrote an infographic on the epidemiology of liver cancer. It was a good growing experience to work with a designer and an editor on a piece of visual, data-oriented journalism. I learned a lot and ended up wanting to experiment more with conveying data visually, with words and stories as a complement, rather than the other way around. I’m looking forward to the next opportunity.

To best see the visual elements of the infographic, I recommend checking out the PDF below rather than the HTML web version.

First published by Nature Outlook: [html] [pdf].