GPS World reports that a Russian rocket carrying three GLONASS navigation satellites crashed last week. No casualties or damage to surroundings structures or the nearby town of Baikonur have been reported. There are a number of videos, too, so go take a look.

The always fascinating Strange Maps has a post entitled ‘Terminal Cartography’ which, you may have guessed, is about a map depicting death. How it does it, though, is quite unique – as it illustrates each continent with human cells that represent the most common manner of death for that particular continent. A great, if morbid, concept.

Making Maps has a great post that talks about old sketched spy maps that were designed to not be recognisable as maps. The results are beautiful, with enemy bases being disguised as moths, butterflies, and leaves. A great piece of map nostalgia.

The BBC has an interesting story on creating bat distribution maps using software that identifies different species’ unique calls, and then places them in a spatial context. Very clever stuff, with potential uses for the maps equally so.

The annual Esri User Conference kicked off in the states this week, and if you’re keen to see what ol Jacko (nobody calls him that) had to say at the plenary, then Very Spatial has a live blog outlining all the juicy bits.

And, it’s that time of year again when a bunch of the fittest cyclists you can imagine decide to puff their way up a mountain. Yup, the Tour de France will be kicking off soon, and for those not quite fit enough to have a go, Google can let you get your vicarious kicks via a Street View of the entire race – with each section becoming available as the race progresses.

ABC news has a story on a recent discovery that large magnitude earthquakes have caused volcanoes hundreds of kilometres away to sink around 15cm. The study notes that the researchers do not yet know if the sinking increases the chance of an eruption.