Cosmos Recap: Let's Get Small

Sorry, nerds, despite the title, this week's episode of Cosmos, "Deeper, Deeper, Deeper Still," is not Neil deGrasse Tyson porn. Or maybe the whole series is. We won't question what goes on between you and your television. That title summarizes what feels like half of Tyson's lines this week: It's all atoms and subatomic particles, so we keep looking at things on an ever-tinier scale.

One of the show's trademark dandelion seeds floats down right as the episode opens -- is "find the dandelion seed" a visual running gag that I'm just now noticing? There was one in Episode 5, too, so I'm guessing they're like Hitchcock's self-cameos or the Pizza Planet truck in Pixar movies, a little Easter Egg to look for. I've cleared out my DVR, and darned if I'm going to go through all the full episodes online, but I'll keep an eye out from here on in.

This particular seed lands in a pool of water, and so it's time for Neil to introduce his "unseen worlds" theme by easing us slowly back to elementary school science, talking about the two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom in each molecule of the stuff.

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