Balls of Twine and DNA

In large automobile manufacturing plants, cars can travel many miles on an assembly line.  It only takes a brief moment to realize that the factory is not a mile long, but that the assembly line weaves back and forth many times.

The world's largest ball of twine, currently residing in Cawker City, Kansas, weighs over nine tons and (as of 2003) consists of approximately 1325 miles of twine.  Stretched out, the twine would reach about halfway from New York to Los Angeles.

This doesn't shock us that much, as the ball of twine is about the size of Usain Bolt's ego.  (His official Twitter description is "The most naturally gifted athlete the world has ever seen."  His website features overbearingly large pictures of himself with the words: "World's Fastest Man")

As long as we are on a tangent, here is a picture of the local weather station in Cawker City:

It's a Tornado

What really gets crazy is when we think about the total length of the DNA in our own bodies.  DNA from a single cell is about 6 feet long.  Such a large amount of purposeful material in such a small space is mind-blowing.  If we could build computers that could store information that efficiently, just think of all the silly pictures of cats we could store on our computers.