Fridaygram: constitutions online, dinosaur footprints, Science Fair
By +Scott Knaster, Google Developers Blog
Editor
This week Google and the Comparative Constitutions Project launched
Constitute, which puts constitutions
online for people everywhere to explore. Constitute includes 177 constitutions, many of which
weren’t online previously.
Each country’s constitution is tagged for easier navigation, marking such attributes as
citizenship, foreign policy, and electoral oversight. Having them all online together, tagged
and searchable, enables unprecedented research. For example, you can quickly see which
countries grant rights to minorities, and even how each country defines a minority. You can
also watch the progress of trends such as marriage equality and voting rights.
With dozens of new and amended constitutions in the world each year, Constitute can become a
central source for exploring what’s new and for helping drafters of future constitutions think
about how to proceed with their work.
Constitutions have been around for thousands of years, but a discovery in the Yukon earlier
this year revealed something far older: dinosaur tracks.
Dozens
of fossilized dinosaur footprints were found by scientists from the University of
Alaska on an expedition near the Arctic Circle. According to researcher Paul McCarthy, “The
tracks were so abundant along the Yukon River that we could find and collect as many as 50
specimens in as little as 10 minutes”. That’s a lot of footprints made by a lot of big
feet.
Finally, we congratulate the winners and participants in this year’s
Google Science Fair. First place went
to Eric Chen, who studied ways to fight the spread of flu. Other winners included Vinay Kumar,
Ann Makosinski, and Elif Bilgin. But we think the best part is the cool
Lego
trophy each winner gets to take home.
All we are is dust in the wind, or tracks in the Yukon, or something similarly
temporary. But while we’re here, there’s Fridaygram to
bring some fun nerdy news for your weekend. Thanks to our Yukon correspondent +Louis Gray for the dinosaur tip.
