alt Hacker NewsSize of Life
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The dynamic soundscape is delightful, as it subtly adds instruments and musical texture as you progress. And going back down the scale regresses it to simple again. Smoothly done.
It reminded me of Operation Neptune (1991): each level starts with just one channel, probably percussion, and as you progress through the rooms it adds and removes more channels or sometimes switches to a different section of music. It is unfortunately all sharp cuts, no attempts at smoothing or timing instrument entry and exit. A couple of samples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0LNaatyoQk is an hour of gameplay revelling in “the dynamic and sometimes beautiful music of Operation Neptune” using a Roland MT-32 MIDI synthesiser; and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPxEdQ4wx9s&list=PL3FC048B13... is the PCM files used on some platforms (if you want to compare that track with the MT-32, it starts at 28 minutes).
Beautiful. It's clearly a labor of love.
The authors deserve our support. Buy them a coffee via the provided link.
Thank you for sharing this on HN.
Neal delivers. I recently learned that viruses are not considered living being, but I'm nevertheless happy they're included here because they're both relevant and interesting in this context.
> A highly social, relatively hairless bipedal ape that was once a nomadic hunter-gatherer, but has adapted to create websites.
Definitely worthy the scroll!
If you’re interested to read something on that topic I highly recommend the essay "That's About the Size of It" by Isaac Asimov (in his book "View from a Height").
He argues that human perception of animal size is skewed because humans use themselves as a benchmark.
He takes a logarithmic approach to illustrate where humans actually fit within the overall scale of the animal kingdom. We are way larger than we think we are!
It seems to be like some of the scales slightly off?
If you are looking at the ladybird (ladybug) with the amoeba to the left, the amoeba isn't an order of the magnitude smaller - it would actually be visible by the human eye (bigger than a grain of sand)? Indeed, the amoeba seems the same size as the ladybird's foot?
Similarly, this makes the bumblebee appear smaller than a human finger (the in the adjacent picture), which isn't the case?
No.fun in the cookie dialogue. Had to click 26 (sic!) switches to opt out of being tracked.
Reminds me of https://scaleofuniverse.com . I think confining it to just living things removes the perspective of "Wow, we're really small compared to the rest of the universe".
> Human A highly social, relatively hairless bipedal ape that was once a nomadic hunter-gatherer, but has adapted to create websites.
One of the books that got me introduced to this fascinating aspect of our natural world is John Tyler Bonner's Size and Cycle. It has features amazing log-log plots of how different organisms from grow with time: from eggs to full-grown organisms. This kind of visualisation gives you a different perspective on growth and scale
For example, Sequoia gigantea Sequoia is the largest tree and can be effectively compared to the annual plant shown above. Fertilization and the early growth to the seed stage are essentially similar, but because of the cambium and the possibility of secondary thickening, the size of the tree can increase enormously. As can be seen from Figure 1 in the text, the sequoia does not begin to set seed until it is sixty years old and eighty meters tall.
Maybe it's a stupid question, but how does the poliovirus "work"? Like at this scale, the DNA strand is still pretty visible and a decent-ish percentage of the polio virus in size.. is it just a ball with DNA inside and not much else? How does it pack enough DNA to replicate itself into it's own size at that scale?
Pretty glad the 9 foot long Arthopleura centipede went extinct 300 million years ago. No one wants to deal with that thing.
Missing a mushroom from Oregon [1]
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-...
> Human: A highly social, relatively hairless bipedal ape that was once a nomadic hunter-gatherer, but has adapted to create websites.
Thanks for the laugh!
I like it, but the switch from metric to inches is confusing, and I think introduces a bug - there's no way a sea snail is 5-6 neurons high.
Tools like this are surprisingly effective for teaching, especially compared to static diagrams. Interaction makes the scale differences stick.
The music is so moving, tear inducing. One of the best links I've seen posted here and I've been here 15+ years. Well done Neal. I wish credit was given to the music, anyone know who created it?
If you liked the first half of this site and want an extension, Cell Biology by the Numbers (2015, Milo, Phillips, https://book.bionumbers.org/) is great and has a similar intuition-building fun sense about size as well as various other measurements, including weight, time and energy at the atomic to micro-organism level.
I would like to play an open world game (like Minecraft) where 1 in-game meter equals 1 micrometer in the real world. That way, one could get a feeling about the scale of things.
It makes me emotional when I think about where life started and what it evolved into. Life created so many different types of organisms, each having different features while maintaining the equilibrium of the planet. From bacteria, to massive dinosaurs, to tiny homosapiens who inevitably control the largest organisms.
This was awesome! Also, I couldn't stop my child brain from anticipating "your mom" at the end.
HUMAN
A highly social, relatively hairless bipedal ape that was once a nomadic hunter-gatherer, but has adapted to create websites. :)
One error I think I spotted: Wooly Mammoth atill lived 4000 years ago in Wrangel Island but the the website says it got extinct 10,000 years ago.
Reminds me of the classic Scale of the Universe flash toy by Cary Huang (now available in HTML 5!):
This has DNA as the smallest object and has a large protein next to it, so it misses the fact that a gene's DNA is almost always larger by weight and volume than the protein it encodes.
Never before have I seen the message "Firefox has been terminated by the Linux kernel because the system is low on memory". Thanks for a new experience!
I do like the visualization.
This is absolutely incredible. Thank you.
Great visualization! It would have been nice to zoom out to a view of the world from space at the end, since this is really the max size of life as we know it (n=1 so far).
All hail web based apps!
We really dont need playStore and appStore to run beautiful things like this.
Onl missing a Wikipedia link on each page!
Great webapp. There is a similar app that I love to scroll through from time to time. Its free and needs no internet connection. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/universe-in-a-nutshell/id15263... The range of size in the universe, from the tiniest particles to the epic galaxies - we take you on a journey of size that lets you explore it all with a single swipe.
So many new facts to learn and I like how popular a post about the natural world is here
Neal.fun is good clean fun - my kids love it too. Neal, if you are listening, would pay for an ad-free version (I already bought you some coffees too).
Very cool. I was surprised that orangutans are described as being only 2 feet 9 inches tall, I think most are a bit larger. Maybe when sitting they're under 3 feet? From wikipedia:
"females typically stand 115 cm (45 in) tall and weigh around 37 kg (82 lb), while adult males stand 137 cm (54 in) tall and weigh 75 kg (165 lb). The tallest orangutan recorded was a 180 cm (71 in)."
Amazing!
I always thought that the best we could do for targeted drug delivery was an adenovirus. But after seeing that parasite being only slightly bigger than a red blood cell, I think we can do better...
I find it amazing, that we can build microprocessors with transistors the size of a DNA molecule
Why haven't I seen a Tardigrade with my eyeball? It seems like they are the size of a spot on a ladybug from the pics.
Great job.
I did a side project that helps with comparisons, but in a rather different way (e.g. how many African elephants does something weigh). Not as slick as this site, but someone might find it useful:
> Velociraptor > Smaller than usually depicted, the Velociraptor was actually only about the size of a turkey.
This is an interesting fact.
> A highly social, relatively hairless bipedal ape that was once a nomadic hunter-gatherer, but has adapted to create websites
1 nitpick: The Dwarf Lanternshark is not found off the coast of "Columbia" but "Colombia!"
Reminds me of the video game Everything. Its a really cool game where you explore the various scales of the universe. It has its quirks (somewhat phoned in graphics like animals walking) but the concept and execution are great IMO, would love a sequel. Also bonus points for featuring Alan watts as a core character.
Reminds me of the classic "powers of 10" video: https://youtu.be/0fKBhvDjuy0. Someone ought to remake that but as a gaussian splat reconstruction, so you can freely move the camera as well as zoom.
CGP Grey does a similar video — spanning the sizes of our entire observable universe — called "Metric Paper" [0]
[0] https://www.yout-ube.com/watch?v=pUF5esTscZI
Even if you've never taken a mild psychedelic, this video hits in a similar manner (as sober metaphor).
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I still drive with Neal.fun's Internet Roadtrip (same OP link author), every time I'm out in my workshop.
Absolutely loved that the intensity of the music is synced with the swiping. Fantastic job as always!
My main takeaway was that I had no clue how large Krill can get. To think that Antarctic Krill is as long as the Bee Hummingbird is tall is absurd to me.
You’re telling me a white blood cell is only ten times longer than mitochondria?
How is that possible? Doesn’t it contain at least thousands?
If anyone wants to set this up to auto-run all the way to the right and then all the way back to the left, here is a vibe-coded (sorry) browser console script. Makes a great "screen-saver" if you kick off the script and then put your browser in full screen mode :)
(function() {
let direction = 'right'; // Start by going right
let intervalId;
function getCurrentAnimalName() {
const animalDiv = document.querySelector('.animal-name');
return animalDiv ? animalDiv.textContent.trim() : '';
}
function pressKey(keyCode) {
const event = new KeyboardEvent('keydown', {
key: keyCode === 37 ? 'ArrowLeft' : 'ArrowRight',
keyCode: keyCode,
code: keyCode === 37 ? 'ArrowLeft' : 'ArrowRight',
which: keyCode,
bubbles: true
});
document.dispatchEvent(event);
}
function autoScroll() {
const currentName = getCurrentAnimalName();
if (direction === 'right') {
pressKey(39); // Right arrow
if (currentName === 'Pando Clone') {
console.log('Reached Pando Clone, switching to left');
direction = 'left';
}
} else {
pressKey(37); // Left arrow
if (currentName === 'DNA') {
console.log('Reached DNA, switching to right');
direction = 'right';
}
}
}
// Start the interval
intervalId = setInterval(autoScroll, 3000);
// Log start message and provide stop function
console.log('Auto-scroll started! To stop, call: stopAutoScroll()');
// Expose stop function globally
window.stopAutoScroll = function() {
clearInterval(intervalId);
console.log('Auto-scroll stopped');
};
})();It claims a banana isn't technically living, but a banana has living cells so I'm not sure how accurate that is. I'm not sure when they're all considered 'dead' after harvesting though - maybe some wiggle room there.
Hi all! I’m Aleix Ramon, the music composer of the soundtrack.
Since some of you asked, here’s the soundtrack on Bandcamp: https://aleixramon.bandcamp.com/album/size-of-life-original-...
There you can download it in high quality, and it’s a pay-what-you-want: you can get it for free if you want, or pay what you feel like and support me. Either way, I’m happy that you enjoy it!
The music should also be on Spotify, Apple Music, and most music streaming services within the next 24h.
A bit about the process of scoring Size of Life:
I’ve worked with Neal before on a couple of his other games, including Absurd Trolley Problems, so we were used to working together (and with his producer—you’re awesome, Liz!). When Neal told me about Size of Life, we had an inspiring conversation about how the music could make the players feel.
The core idea was that it should enhance that feeling of wondrous discovery, but subtly, without taking the attention away from the beautiful illustrations.
I also thought it should reflect the organisms' increasing size—as some of you pointed out, the music grows with them. I think of it as a single instrument that builds upon itself, like the cells in an increasingly complex organism. So I composed 12 layers that loop indefinitely—as you progress, each layer is added, and as you go back, they’re subtracted. The effect is most clear if you get to the end and then return to the smaller organisms!
Since the game has an encyclopedia vibe to it, I proposed to go with a string instrument to give it a subtle “Enlightenment-era” and “cultural” feel. I was suspecting the cello could be a good instrument because of its range and expressivity.
Coincidentally, the next week I met the cellist Iratxe Ibaibarriaga at a game conference in Barcelona, where I’m based, and she immediately became the ideal person for it. She’s done a wonderful job bringing a ton of expressivity to the playing, and it’s been a delight to work with her.
I got very excited when Neal told me he was making an educational game—I come from a family of school teachers. I’ve been scoring games for over 10 years, but this is the first educational game I’ve scored.
In a way, now the circle feels complete!
(if anyone wants to reach out, feel free to do so! You can find me and all my stuff here: https://www.aleixramon.com/ )