Data Is Plural

... is a weekly newsletter of useful/curious datasets.

2018.02.28 edition

Peace agreements, historical battles, American radiation, fellow mammals, and Rick and Morty.

Peace agreements. The PA-X Peace Agreements Database contains structured information about 1,500+ “formal, publicly-available documents” that address “conflict with a view to ending it.” The database covers more than 140 peace processes between 1990 and 2015, and each agreement has been coded for more than 200 variables — for instance, whether the agreement contains provisions about religious groups. [h/t Melissa Terras]

Historical battles. Political scientist Jeffrey Arnold has converted the U.S. Army Concepts Analysis Agency (CAA) Database of Battles from a series of Lotus 1-2-3 worksheets into tidier, easier-to-use CSV files. The dataset includes details of 660 battles — associated with several dozen wars — between 1600 and the mid/late-1900s. The fields indicate each battle’s “name, date, and location; the strengths and losses on each side; identification of the victor; temporal duration of the battle,” and more.

American radiation. The Environmental Protection Agency’s RadNet system “monitors the nation’s air, precipitation and drinking water for radiation.” The radiation measurements, collected from 130+ stations in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, are available on a “near-real-time” basis. Related: Randall Munroe’s radiation dose chart. Previously: SafeCast (DIP 2016.02.03). [h/t Stanislav Kralin]

Fellow mammals. The American Society of Mammalogists’ Mammal Diversity Database “is home base for tracking the latest taxonomic changes to species and higher groups of mammals.” Currently, it contains more than 1,300 genera and 6,000 total species. Fun facts: The impala is the only member of the genus Aepyceros, and the name “Schmidly’s deer mouse” can refer to either of two species in two entirely different genera. [h/t Himanshu Goenka]

Rick and Morty. The (unofficial) Rick and Morty API provides data on 390+ characters, 60+ locations, and all 31 episodes of the science-fictional animated series.