"So just remember when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth . . . ."
Monty Python, "The Universe Song"
Have you ever wondered what a leaf on a tree must look like from, oh, the other side of the galaxy? Or, standing here, how the building blocks of that life might appear? Well, now you can take a peek. The High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida, has a Java applet on its Web site that lets you see it all! Beginning ten million light years from Earth, the scene zooms in by powers of ten until you see an individual leaf on an oak tree at the laboratory--and then it continues to zoom, letting you explore the views of cells, DNA, electron clouds, and quarks. You can also zoom the view outward.