Archive for January, 2010

What’s the frak is at NYC’s Union Square subway stop?

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

device in Union Square subway station with NYC DEP logo on sideEvery day — make that twice a day — a vexing questions pops into my head as I stroll through Union Square’s subway stop en route to work:

What the heck is this thing/device/contraption?

Obviously a big “New York City Department of Environmental Protection” is slapped across the side. But Google University doesn’t seem to help… the best that comes up is a noise detector (i.e. for loud noises that may harm riders).

It can’t be that lame… or could it?

My neighbor Patrick suspects that it’s an anti-terrorism device.* A bomb sniffer, perhaps? A biological weapons detector? A vacuum to suck up only terrorists as they walk by, ala Ghost Busters?

The puzzling part is the cup on the top, not to mention that all of the goodies are locked up in steel boxes.

Other guesses include a mosquito catcher, an air quality monitor, a data relay (for information collection on tracks?), or a make-people-who-use-the-subway-go-insane-because-they-can’t-figure-out-what-this-ha-ha-ha device.

If you have a guess, or better yet know what this is, please put ‘er in the comments section.

* Let’s hope I haven’t broken any law by writing this…

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Posted in Government, Technology | 5 Comments »

TV/Computer Screen Science – Part 2

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

In the last post I challenged your television/computer screen know-how.

Here’s what you’ve been waiting for:

TV 1 = Cathode Ray Tube (CRT)television screen close-up

TV 2 = Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)television screen close-up

TV 3 = Plasmatelevision screen close-up

TV 4 = Light-Emitting Diode (LED)television screen close-up

Get more than two correct? Go ahead and put a gold star on your progress chart. I think these images look cool, but how they work is even cooler:

(more…)

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Posted in Technology | No Comments »

TV/Computer Screen Science – Part 1

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

Look at you, just looking at that cool flat screen of yours, reading this blog post.

Yes, you — who else?

Think about this: Pieces of light are shooting out of that screen, slowing down as they hit your eyeglasses/contacts/cornea/lens/vitreous humor, and ending their short-lived existence on a suicide mission into your retinal rod and cone cells — which create electrical signals that travel through your optic nerve and into your fleshy computer to comprehend this text.

Mind-blowing run-on sentences aside, what they heck are you really looking at? Where is that light really coming from? What is the material responsible in the screen? How does it all work? What is the meaning of life?

Let’s find out! But first, a fun guessing game. (more…)

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Posted in Photography, Technology | 3 Comments »

Ten science things Avatar got right

Monday, January 11th, 2010

Avatar 3D interplanetary spaceshipAvatar, James Cameron’s new 3D-movie spectacular, is a veritable buffet of seemingly plausible science to wow us into suspending disbelief. So much so that some of us even walk away depressed.

It’s no secret that most movies are terrible about getting science correct. But because Avatar rises above the rest, it sounded fun to list what worked for this nerd.

Disclaimer: I think filmmakers need some artistic license. As long as a director tries to get something even close to correct, and the science isn’t be insultingly misrepresented — *coughTheCorecough* — you get an “A” for effort in my gradebook.

And some points for those who haven’t seen the movie:

  1. Go see it. Please crawl out from under your rock and slam down the $10-20 to see it (IMAX 3D is amazing). The plot is as predictable as a can of baked beans, but Cameron’s zeal for going all-out compensates for this and other flaws. I’ll leave it to film critics to discuss the artistic merits.
  2. Plot 101: Pandora is a lush green moon around a gas giant planet that’s unusually rich in a rare (and made-up) mineral called “Unobtainium.” It sells for $20 million a kilogram, and a company has set up a mining operation on the moon to rake in the dough. Problem is, the moon is inhabited by monstrously tall, blue, deadly, nature-loving humanoids called the Na’vi who are pissed that the “Sky People” are pillaging their beautiful world. We jump into the story as a spaceship full of people, including one Jake Sulley — a paraplegic marine who’s filling in for his genetically similar yet recently killed scientist brother –  arrives in orbit after 6 years of travel. Sulley’s mission: to control a (very expensive) part human, part-Na’vi clone to study, help make peace with the Pandora natives, and get them out of their mile-high tree village. Which of course sits on the richest pile of unobtainium in the area.
  3. Spoiler alert! Don’t read any further if you want to be surprised in the theater.

Without further adieu, ten things Avatar got right: (more…)

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Posted in Pop Culture | 4 Comments »

Science brownie points for Microsoft’s Bing.com

Saturday, January 9th, 2010

If Bing is trying to sneak away Google’s share of nerds’ favorite means to search the ‘net, I have to say that they’re doing a great job.

Check this out, from a few days ago:

Jupiter's moon Io on Bing.com

Io, the most volcanically active anything in the solar system, as the home page background? +5 nerd points.

And then today it’s desmids: (more…)

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Posted in Technology | No Comments »

What the heck is a “Cosmopolitanaut?”

Friday, January 8th, 2010

Carl Sagan

Honestly, I don’t know.

Well, I didn’t know when I decided to start this blog. What follows is a rough summary of my thinking:

I love science, especially anything in the field of space/astronomy/the universe in general, and I think space exploration is the bee’s knees. That plus I wanted to give a serious hat-tip to Carl Sagan, my most favorite person of all time. “Cosmos” was a natural place to start.

As I put the new davemosher.com together, “cosmos” led to…

“Cosmonaut” — we all know what this means. I hope. If you don’t, I may cry.

“Cosmopolitan” — one of those pesky words I always forget the meaning of. Enter Mr. Merriam-Webster:

Main Entry: 2cosmopolitan

Function: adjective

Date: 1798

1 : having worldwide rather than limited or provincial scope or bearing

2 : having wide international sophistication : worldly

3 : composed of persons, constituents, or elements from all or many parts of the world

4 : found in most parts of the world and under varied ecological conditions <a cosmopolitan herb>

— cos·mo·pol·i·tan·ism \-tə-ˌni-zəm\ noun

M-W.com

Definitions 1 and 3 looked good, particularly since I’m not the most sophisticated person on this planet (personal references available).

When we smack “cosmopolitan” together with “cosmonaut,” conveniently leave out the Russian connotation, knead for 10 minutes, let rise for 1 hour, form into loaf and bake for 35 minutes at 350 degrees F:

Cosmopolitanaut – A space explorer of unlimited scope that may be composed of many different persons, constituents or elements.

Sounds pretty good to me, especially because “many different persons” allows me to have some guest blogger buddies when I’m lazy. But I want to point out that your average space explorers — as serious as they may be about their jobs — don’t simply bang out experiments and build stuff in the cold vacuum beyond Earth.

They take pictures. They watch movies. They do somersaults in mid-air. They play with their food. They even play golf.

So I hereby decree that the Cosmopolitanaut blog will be a place to explore the universe with a healthy serving of fun. You’ll get science, skepticism, self-mockery and the occasional photo, video and personal story which (at least on the surface) are completely unrelated to science.

Sound good? If so, here’s the RSS feed.

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Posted in Announcements | 2 Comments »