My favorite part of research is the opportunity I have to play with the scale of things by working at very small sizes. The large crater you see in that picture is about a hundred microns wide, barely the diameter of a human hair; the deeper central hole, ten microns, could just about fit a red blood cell; the column at the very center, one micron, could skewer a cell nucleus. And yet the image conveys vastness, a seer's tower at the end of the world, watching upon an entire land. To the minuscule augur living in that micron-sized tower, this is a massive expanse, this is far as the universe goes. Barely a human hair. These days, every time my research, the news or my life feel too big, too all-consuming, I'm reminded of the seer's tower – and I remember that the size of things is also a question of perspective.
