Google's Periodic Table of APIs & Developer Tools

From the Google Code site, the Periodic Table of Google APIs & Developer Tools is a cool layout of the tools available.  It’s actually well designed table, so each element is clickable, and takes you to the information page about that particular API.

They’re color-coded by category, but many of them belong to multiple categories.  For example, the Google Analytics is part of Data APIs, Ads and Tools.  If you mouse over the category names at the top, all of the members of that category are highlighted below.

Found on Twitter through @illuminantceo

Periodic Table of Professional Cycling

Cosmo Catalano has created the Periodic Table of Professional Cycling for his cycling website, Cyclocosm.com.

The data lends itself surprisingly well to the periodic table format. Horizontal periods correspond closely to the prestige of each event, while vertical series indicate geographic location. Multi-day races are on the left hand side of the chart, one-day events on the right.

Thank Cosmo, via http://cyclocosm.com/periodic_table/

Circular Periodic Table of the Elements

Mohd Abubakr has redrawn the classic periodic table in a circular pattern to improve the proximity and relationships between the elements.

So why change it? According to Mohd Abubakr from Microsoft Research in Hyderabad, the table can be improved by arranging it in circular form. He says this gives a sense of the relative size of atoms--the closer to the centre, the smaller they are--something that is missing from the current form of the table. It preserves the periods and groups that make Mendeleev's table so useful. And by placing hydrogen and helium near the centre, Abubakr says this solves the problem of whether to put hydrogen with the halogens or alkali metals and of whether to put helium in the 2nd group or with the inert gases.

The strongest feedback about the new circular table is that you have to rotate it to read it.  Kind of a problem when you print a poster and post it in a classroom or a laboratory.  Although I think it's an easy thing to remedy by changing the orientation of the text.

Original post on Technology Review by MIT, and found on VizWorld by Randall Hand.

"Meet The Elements" - infographic video for kids

Found on BoingBoing and Information Aesthetics, a infographic music video, "Meet The Elements", from They Might Be Giants from their new kids album titled "Here Comes Science". Video directed by Feel Good Anyway.

Periodic Table of Typefaces

Created by Cameron Wilde/SquidSpot, The Periodic Table of Typefaces lays out the top ranked type fonts.  Makes a great poster for the office.

I found this over on Visual Think Map