This was an interesting article at CNET. Here’s the first part:

The human brain is truly awesome.

A typical, healthy one houses some 200 billion nerve cells, which are connected to one another via hundreds of trillions of synapses. Each synapse functions like a microprocessor, and tens of thousands of them can connect a single neuron to other nerve cells. In the cerebral cortex alone, there are roughly 125 trillion synapses, which is about how many stars fill 1,500 Milky Way galaxies.

(HT: Challies)

Summer officially begins at 6:28 am today, Central Daylight Time.

Here’s some information on the summer solstice.

I know that on the summer solstice the sun is directly overhead at noon at the Tropic of Cancer, and we have the longest day of the year. Somewhere around here we also reach the point in our orbit when we are the farthest away from the sun. If that’s today as well, that’s pretty cool. (On the surface, it would make sense that it was, but I think, for some reason, this actually happens a couple of weeks later.)

My kids are very excited about the first day of spring (today). They are celebrating with ice cream and just plain enthusiasm.

Fox News has an interesting article today on the science of the equinoxes and solstices. Here’s one interesting piece:

At the North Pole, the sun rises only once a year — at the start of spring. It gets higher in the sky each day until the summer solstice, then sinks but does not truly set until late September, at the autumn equinox.