MetaFilter posts tagged with map and science

Human GPS

vidur — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 19:15:39 -0800

"Piloting London’s distinctive black cabs (taxis to everyone else) is no easy feat. To earn the privilege, drivers have to pass an intense intellectual ordeal, known charmingly as The Knowledge. Ever since 1865, they’ve had to memorise the location of every street within six miles of Charing Cross – all 25,000 of the capital’s arteries, veins and capillaries. They also need to know the locations of 20,000 landmarks – museums, police stations, theatres, clubs, and more – and 320 routes that connect everything up." Acquiring The Knowledge changes the brains of those who acquire it.

I got the whole world in my hands...

Rhaomi — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:27:51 -0800

The official Google Earth plugin is one free download that makes all sorts of cool stuff possible in your browser. There's a full screen version of the program (complete with underwater views and 3D buildings) which can be searched by entering queries at the end of the URL. There's a framed version with support for layers, historical imagery, day/night cycles, and the Google Sky starmap. Less useful but more fun are Google's collection of "experiments" demonstrating the possibilities of the Earth API, including a "Geo Whiz" geography quiz, an antipode locater, a 3D first-person view of San Francisco, a virtual route-follower, and MONSTER MILKTRUCK!, a crazy fun driving simulator that lets you careen a virtual milk truck through the Googleplex campus, ricochet off the Himalayas, or explore any other place you care to name. Lots more can be found in the Google Earth Gallery -- highlights include a look at mountaintop removal mining, a real-time flight tracker, a guide to trails and outdoor recreation, a 360 panorama catalog, geotagged Panoramio photos, and the comprehensive crowdsourced Google Earth Community Layer. And while it's too large to view online, don't miss loading the Metafilter user location map into a desktop version of Google Earth! Controls for the plugin: left click and drag: pan right click and drag: rotate/smooth zoom scroll wheel: zoom into/away from cursor scroll wheel click and drag: rotate around point double left/right click: zoom in/out WASD/arrow keys: pan Shift+WASD/arrow keys: rotate/tilt camera +,-: zoom in/out

Here's your frakkin' map

Brandon Blatcher — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:01:53 -0800

Ever wondered how the Twelve Colonies of Battlestar Galatica fit around a single star? Then gaze upon a lovely map of star clusters that is the BSG universe, designed by writer Jane Espenson and science advisor Kevin Grazier

Explore the Surface of Mercury

SpringAquifer — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:37:43 -0800

NASA's MESSENGER team (previously: 1, 2, 3), with help from the U.S. Geological Survey, released yesterday the first global map of the planet Mercury. The map stitches together images from MESSENGER's three recent flybys of the planet with those from Mariner 10, which saw about 45% of the planet in the mid-1970s. While a seemingly simple task, "the challenging part has been to make cartographically accurate maps from a series of images with varying resolution (from about 100 to 900 meters per pixel) and lighting conditions (from noontime high Sun to dawn and dusk) taken from a spacecraft traveling at speeds greater than 2 kilometers per second (2,237 miles per hour)." This map serves an "extremely important use as a planning tool" and signifies that MESSENGER "is no longer a flyby mission but instead will soon become an in-depth, non-stop global observatory of the Solar System’s innermost planet.” Also available to explore on the USGS's Map-a-Planet website: Venus, the Moon, Mars, Callisto, Europa, Ganymede, Io, Rhea, Dione, Tethys, Iapetus, and Enceladus.

Map of Science

homunculus — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 20:55:29 -0800

Knowledge, in Real Time. "A new picture of science — and possibly future innovation — comes into focus with the mapping of scientists’ online research behavior."

Kadath in the Cold Waste

Artw — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:13:02 -0800

Landsat Image Mosaic Of Antarctica UK and US researchers peice together the most detailed map of Antarctica yet, searching through years of data to find cloud free images.

data landscapes

nickyskye — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 05:55:18 -0800

Map of Science. Science is the most interconnected of all human activities and requires a series of maps to chart its changing landscape. Scientific method: relationships among scientific paradigms.

The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

carter — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 10:25:55 -0800

The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich has some excellent online collections related to maritime history and technology, including telescopes, marine chronometers, sundials, and a whole lot more. Some stuff I've been looking at: John Harrison's chronometers (described in Dava Sobel's book Longitude), polyhedral sundials, and pocket globes.

luser — Tue, 27 Nov 2001 13:50:21 -0800

Cool high-school science experiment: Mapping The Homunculus. The 15 year old in me wonders why nipples and other naughty bits aren't mentioned, though. Bet they'd be really big!!!