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Open the large interactive version here 
Open the large interactive version here
Silicon Valley is one of the largest and most prominent tech hubs in the world. It accounts for about one-third of America’s national investment capital and it houses the headquarters of over 30 companies in the Fortune 1000.
Given its world-class reputation, it’s the dream of many tech workers to land a job in a Silicon Valley company. But what’s the best route for getting there?
While there is certainly no clear-cut path, one way to try and answer this question is by looking at the universities and colleges that Silicon Valley employees graduate from.
This interactive map by Stephanie Cristea shows the top feeder schools to some of the largest companies in Silicon Valley.
The data for this graphic comes from a study by College Transitions, which looks at the top feeder schools for 12 different companies with employees in Silicon Valley, including Twitter, Alphabet, DocuSign, Meta, and eight other large businesses.
Using publicly available data from LinkedIn, the study looked at more than 70,000 entry level engineers and IT employees at these 12 different companies, and identified where they received their undergraduate degree.
Here are the findings of the top 30 feeder schools across all 12 companies:
While this research is far from exhaustive, it provides a glimpse of where 12 of the largest companies in Silicon Valley source their talent, and what it takes to make it into the big leagues.
Next, let’s look at the ranking after being adjusted proportionally for each school’s undergraduate enrolment numbers (so smaller schools can be fairly represented in the data):
Interestingly, when looking at the adjusted figures, only two of the top 10 feeder schools are Ivy League institutions: Columbia, which comes second on the list, and Harvard, which just makes the cut at number 10.
Carnegie Mellon takes first place, with over 1,300 hired graduates across all 12 companies. While the Pittsburgh-based university is not an Ivy League school, it still has a great reputation—in a recent study by U.S. News & World Report, it ranked as one of the best universities in America.
Even with its excellent reputation, Carnegie Mellon’s acceptance rate is relatively high at 17%, especially when compared to its Ivy League counterparts like Columbia (6%) and Harvard (4%).
It’s worth mentioning that, while Ivy League didn’t dominate the top 10 list, all eight schools made it into the top 30. So, while this data shows that Silicon Valley isn’t exclusively hiring from Ivy League schools, it does indicate that these prestigious institutions have a seat at the table.
This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist’s Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.
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The eye is one of the most complex organs in biology. We illustrate its evolution from a simple photoreceptor cell to a complex structure.
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Throughout history, numerous creatures have evolved increasingly complex eyes in response to different selective pressures.
Not all organisms, however, experience the same pressures. It’s why some creatures today still have eyes that are quite simple, or why some have no eyes at all. These organisms exemplify eyes that are “frozen” in time. They provide snapshots of the past, or “checkpoints” of how the eye has transformed throughout its evolutionary journey.
Scientists study the genes, anatomy, and vision of these creatures to figure out a roadmap of how the eye came to be. And so, we put together an evolutionary graphic timeline of the eye’s different stages using several candidate species.
Let’s take a look at how the eye has formed throughout time.
The retina is a layer of nerve tissue, often at the back of the eye, that is sensitive to light.
When light hits it, specialized cells called photoreceptors transform light energy into electrical signals and send them to the brain. Then the brain processes these electrical signals into images, creating vision.
The earliest form of vision arose in unicellular organisms. Containing simple nerve cells that can only distinguish light from dark, they are the most common eye in existence today.
The ability to detect shapes, direction, and color comes from all of the add-ons evolution introduces to these cells.
Two major eye types are dominant across species. Despite having different shapes or specialized parts, improved vision in both eye types is a product of small, gradual changes that optimize the physics of light.
Simple eyes are actually quite complex, but get their name because they consist of one individual unit.
Some mollusks and all of the higher vertebrates, like birds, reptiles, or humans, have simple eyes.
Simple eyes evolved from a pigment cup, slowly folding inwards with time into the shape we recognize today. Specialized structures like the lens, cornea, and pupil arose to help improve the focus of light on the retina. This helps create sharper, clearer images for the brain to process.
Compound eyes are formed by repeating the same basic units of photoreceptors called ommatidia. Each ommatidium is similar to a simple eye, composed of lenses and photoreceptors.
Grouped together, ommatidia form a geodesic pattern that is commonly seen in insects and crustaceans.
Our understanding of the evolution of the compound eye is a bit murky, but we know that rudimentary ommatidia evolved into larger, grouped structures that maximize light capture.
In environments like caves, the deep subsurface, or the ocean floor where little to no light exists, compound eyes are useful for producing vision that gives even the slightest advantage over other species.
Our increasing dependency on technology and digital devices may be ushering in the advent of a new eye shape.
The muscles around the eye stretch to shift the lens when staring at something close by. The eye’s round shape elongates in response to this muscle strain.
Screen time with cellphones, tablets, and computers has risen dramatically over the years, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent studies are already reporting rises in childhood myopia, the inability to see far away. Since the pandemic, cases have increased by 17%, affecting almost 37% of schoolchildren.
Other evolutionary opportunities for our eyes are currently less obvious. It remains to be seen whether advanced corrective therapies, like corneal transplants or visual prosthetics, will have any long-term evolutionary impact on the eye.
For now, colored contacts and wearable tech may be our peek into the future of vision.
Complete Sources
Fernald, Russell D. “Casting a Genetic Light on the Evolution of Eyes.” Science, vol. 313, no. 5795, 29 Sept. 2006, pp. 1914–1918
Gehring, W. J. “New Perspectives on Eye Development and the Evolution of Eyes and Photoreceptors.” Journal of Heredity, vol. 96, no. 3, 13 Jan. 2005, pp. 171–184. Accessed 18 Dec. 2019.
“The Evolution of Sight | PHOS.”
Land, Michael F, and Dan-Eric Nilsson. Animal Eyes. Oxford ; New York, Oxford University Press, 2002.
“The Major Topics of the Research Work of Prof. Dan-E. Nilsson: Vision-Research.eu – the Gateway to European Vision Research.” Accessed 3 Oct. 2022.
Despite its simple appearance, blood is made up of many microscopic elements. This infographic visualizes the composition of blood.
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Have you ever wondered what blood is made up of?
With the average adult possessing five to six liters of blood in the body, this fluid is vital to our lives, circulating oxygen through the body and serving many different functions.
Despite its simple, deep-red appearance, blood is comprised of many tiny chemical components. This infographic visualizes the composition of blood and the microscopic contents in it.
There are two main components that comprise blood:
Plasma is primarily made up of water (91%), salts, and enzymes, but it also carries important proteins and components that serve many bodily functions.
Plasma proteins make up 7% of plasma contents and are created in the liver. These include:
Water and proteins make up 98% of plasma in blood. The other 2% is made up of small traces of chemical byproducts and cellular waste, including electrolytes, glucose, and other nutrients.
There are three categories of formed elements in blood: platelets, white blood cells, and red blood cells. Red blood cells make up 99% of formed elements, with the other 1% comprised of platelets and white blood cells.
The lifespan of a typical red blood cell is around 120 days, after which it dies and is replaced by a new cell. Our bodies are constantly producing red blood cells in the bone marrow, at a rate of millions of cells per second.
Normal red blood cells are round, flattened disks that are thinner in the middle. However, certain diseases and medical therapies can change the shape of red blood cells in different ways.
Here are the types of abnormal red blood cells and their associated diseases:
Sickle cell anemia is a well-known disease that affects the shape of red blood cells. Unlike normal, round red blood cells, cells associated with sickle cell disease are crescent- or sickle-shaped, which can slow and block blood flow.
Other common causes of abnormally shaped red blood cells are thalassemia, hereditary blood disorders, iron deficiency anemia, and liver disease. Identifying abnormal blood cells plays an important role in diagnosing the underlying causes and in finding treatments.
We know that blood is vital, but what does it actually do in the body?
For starters, here are some of the functions of blood:
While we all know that we can’t live without blood, it serves many different functions in the body that we often don’t notice. For humans and many other organisms alike, blood is an integral component that keeps us alive and going.
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