It stretches 5.4 million square miles. It's freezing, inhospitable, and devoid of any native residents. Why, then, is the southernmost continent at the center of such contentious wrangling? We take a look at who owns what in Antarctica, and why the battles have recently grown more tumultuous.

via awesome.good.is

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Real-time visualization of geolocated tweets around the world.

via frogdesign.com
(Click above link to see an interactive heat-map)

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Restrictions on religious practice are far from uncommon in today’s world. The Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life has found that 64 nations, about one-in-three among the countries and territories covered by its 2009 Global Global Restrictions on Religion study, have high restrictions on religion either because of  government restrictions,  social hostilities or both. And because some of the most restrictive countries are very populous, that means about 70% of the world's population lives in countries with high or very high restrictions on religion, the brunt of which often fall on religious minorities.

via pewforum.org

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How fast are Internet connections across the world? How fast are they in your country?

This article from pingdom.com examines the real-world connection speeds for people in the top 50 countries on the Internet, i.e. the countries with the most Internet users.

Average connection speeds

Worldwide averages

Connection speed distribution

via royal.pingdom.com

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via Audree Lapierre

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This map shows the density of nursing and midwifery personnel as the number of nurses/midwives per 10,000 population, in 2000 - 2009.

via chartsbin.com
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The Brutal Decline of Yahoo.

via www.scores.org

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Ever thought what your life (and personal finances) would be like today if 20 years ago, instead of buying a bunch of what you thought then were must-have items you had invested in the companies that manufacture them?  You could have done without an Apple computer back in 1990, right? Consider this: if you had bought Apple Inc. (AAPL) stock instead, today you’d be sitting on nearly $1 million.

This infographic explores several “what-if” scenarios, featuring companies whose stock, in hindsight, you probably should have bought a couple of decades ago.

via www.mint.com

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The earthquake in Haiti last January was devastating. Eight months later, massive flooding struck Pakistan. This is look at how countries and major organizations around the world responded to both disaster.

via awesome.good.is

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What’s your favorite: iceberg, romaine or red leaf? Tomatoes or cucumbers? Avocado or hard-boiled egg? Ranch or blue cheese? Salad lovers “grapple” with these questions daily. Way to go! In this infographic, mint.com give you the stats on this fresh favorite.

via www.mint.com

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