Map Keys 2006-03-24

This edition: Experts not convinced on Mi Yo Tong Map; Extremely Small Scales; Google expands in a Big Way.

They May Have The Punters, But…

As mentioned here previously, chinese attorney Liu Gang released his findings on the authenticity of the “1763/1418″ Chinese world map my Mi Yo Tong, which is claimed to support the hypothesis that Zheng He traveled to the Western Hemisphere in advance of Columbus and the European navigators of the Age of Discovery. As perhaps expected, the map was declared authentic, with added passionate commentary and rebuttal to crtiics at no extra cost.

As we expected, experts remain unconvinced as to the map’s checkered provenance. In this article in the Chinese newspaper People’s News Daily, an expert at China’s Zhejiang University reasserted the conventional wisdom that the map might be a forgery, based on its similarity to details in maps in famous atlases.

(Via The Map Room)

You Could Carry This One in Your Pocket…

…But you’d lose it.

Using strands of DNA in a process termed “DNA Origami”, Caltech researcher Paul Rothemund at CalTech has created an image strongly resembling North and South America at a scale of 1-to-200 Trillion. The image seems rather rough, but the recognizable outline requires no straining to see.

As reported in the New Scientist(go there to get a look), the map was produced using a single strand of DNA from a bacteria-destroying virus called “M13 mp18″. At regular intervals, using a bit of complemetary DNA which was “sticky”, the virus’ DNA was folded (a pure field would lie flat and featureless).

We don’t know if this could possibly have any application the layman might recognize or use–but we did think it was pretty cool.

(Via Cartography)

Mars At See Level

We recently found ourselves wondering–just how big are Google’s ambitions? We’re still not sure, but with their new offering, Google Mars, we’re pretty sure they’re looking at infinity, if not beyond.

Google Mars touts three views of the Red World: A shaded relief map, based on data obtained by the MOLA sensor on the Mars Global Explorer; A visible image, provided by the Orbital Camera on the Global Explorer, and THEMIS infrared imagery from the Mars Odyssey craft. All information was provided by NASA

The service is not complete yet (and it wouldn’t respond when we loaded it into our Firefox 1.5 browser on Mac OS X 10.3.9). But once it is, one is supposed to be able to use it much as one does Google Earth. Right now, it behaves as Google Local. An intrguing link on the main display is called “Stories”.

We still wonder–new site for a server farm? One never does know when it comes to Google.

(Via Cartography)