GrrlScientist is an evolutionary biologist, ornithologist, aviculturist, birder and freelance science and nature writer. A native of the Pacific Northwest, she relocated from Seattle to NYC with her parrots after earning a BS in Microbiology (emphasis in Virology) and PhD in Zoology (Ornithology) from the University of Washington. In NYC, she was the Chapman Postdoctoral Fellow at the American Museum of Natural History for two years, pursuing part of her "dream" research project by reconstructing a molecular phylogeny of the parrots of the South Pacific islands. GrrlScientist and her five parrots are currently relocating to Germany, where she will continue writing her blog while also writing a book and learning German. (Meanwhile, her parrots will continue to nibble on her extensive personal library.) If you appreciate GrrlScientist's writing, you can help pay her living expenses by hiring her to "blog" your conference, speak at your club or write articles for your publication (or by clicking on the Paypal button below). If you read an essay on this blog that you especially enjoyed, please nominate it for inclusion in 
This animated tutorial allows you to view the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. It then moves through space towards Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. Then the animation moves from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally, into the subatomic universe of electrons and protons.
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Comments
Ah, yes, The Powers Of 10, which not only introduced Dutch kids to science, but also influenced artists. (This rendition as a bonus has great music too...)
Posted by: alfons | July 30, 2006 1:36 PM
Whoa. This is very nice. For a layman such as myself it is like seeing a perfect sunset or a flower opening.
Posted by: Tabor | July 31, 2006 7:09 AM
These Eames-influenced things are great. After the long lead-up of seeing the succession of space images zooming in, I have keen anticipation wondering what part of earth it will choose to zoom in on. Since the beginnings and ends are pretty similar on these, the narrative reaches a sort of climax when the camera touches down on earth. I teach chemistry and we used one last month that touched down on a lilly pad in the Japanese Garden in SF Golden Gate Park. There was a bee on the pad that had pollen stuck on its compound eye!
Posted by: Two Dishes | October 9, 2006 11:32 AM