I came across a simple but mind-bending idea today. Take the entire history of the universe — 13.8 billion years — and compress it linearly into a single calendar year. Every second of that year would equal around 438 real years. A single day would stretch across roughly 37.8 million years. The Big Bang happens at midnight on January 1st. The Milky Way forms somewhere in January. Earth shows up around early September. The dinosaurs go extinct somewhere around December 30th. ...
The cerebellum is the structure I’ve spent most of my PhD staring at. Here are ten interesting facts about it. 1. Cerebellum is Latin for “little brain.” It sits at the base of the skull, tucked beneath the cortex, and looks like its own separate organ. The name has stuck for about 500 years. 2. It’s small, but it has more neurons than the rest of the brain combined. The cerebellum is only about 10% of the brain’s total volume, but estimates suggest it contains roughly 50–80% of all neurons in the human brain. ...