subway

Official New York City Subway Map Dr. Christopher Mason (Weill Cornell Medical College, Manhatten, NY) decided to sequence DNA found in NY subway stations...468 of them to be precise. At each station, his research team collected DNA samples by swabbing the kiosks, turnstiles, benches, railings, trash cans as well as the subway cars. Along with finding abundant Pseudomonas bacteria (also found on our skin) they discovered that the DNA at each of the stations reflected the amazing diversity of the local residents and what they were eating such as pizza, cucumbers, and chickpeas, which may…
It’s been a bad week for celebrity quacks; that is, after starting out looking as though it would be a good week. For example, as I discussed a couple of days ago, contender for the title of world’s most brain dead antivaccine conspiracy theorist, washed up comedian Rob Schneider, having somehow managed to land a gig resurrecting his 20 year old “Richmeister” character (a.k.a. the “Makin’ Copies Guy”) in the service of an ad campaign for State Farm Insurance, found his ad dropped like the proverbial Ebola-laced bedding when State Farm was made aware of Schneider’s virulently antivaccine…
tags: Fast Lane -- The Slide, subway, Rutsche U-Bahn, Berlin, fun, silly, your inner child, entertainment, volkswagen commercial, television, streaming video A long staircase. Next to it a slide. Which way would you go? This is an ad that was created in a subway station in Berlin. Makes me want to visit.
Like it or not, the golden arches of McDonalds are one of the most easily recognised icons of the modern world. The culture they represent is one of instant gratification and saved time, of ready-made food that can be bought cheaply and eaten immediately. Many studies have looked at the effects of these foods on our waistlines, but their symbols and brands are such a pervasive part of our lives that you'd expect them to influence the way we think too. And so they do - Chen-Bo Zhong and Sanford DeVoe have found that fast food can actually induce haste and impatience, in ways that have nothing…
We all know some cities "feel" smaller than others. But this set of subway maps presented at the same scale makes the differences obvious. Just for fun, I made this image layering four of maps from major world cities in red, black, gold, and blue. Recognize the cities? Answer after the fold. . . Sizewise, the winner here is London, shown in red. New York, in black, is a close second. The much less complex gold-green pattern is Washington, DC - note that it only approaches the size of New York and London because of the long spindly commuter line reaching north into Maryland. And that dense…