Burke Museum's magical history tour

Watch the glaciers advance and recede. Follow the path of lahars. Watch the city transform from native village to metropolis. The Burke Museum's Waterlines project gives a lively look at the Seattle area's past, and the forces that still shape the present. And if you want more of the same, check out The Puget Sound River History Project.

Photo: Bird's eye view of Seattle, 1878. Drawn by E.S. Glover. Library of Congress Geography and Map Division

State of the sockeye

A Portland-based advocacy group called State of the Salmon has come up with a beautiful web tool to visualize the situation of 51 populations of sockeye that spawn in North America. There are maps, lists of the data, and a population plot similar to those used to great effect by Hans Rosling. One interesting insight from that plot: when it comes to the last 30 years, most sockeye stocks appear to be in one of two groups: rapidly increasing, or rapidly declining. There isn't any middle ground.

Via Eric Hess at The Daily Score