Happy One Billionth!

[Traditional Wafflican reading upon someone turning one billion seconds old, a bit over 31.7 years.]

One billion years ago, something amazing happened. For the first time, individual cells came together to live as a single organism, and the world saw perhaps the greatest invention of all time: sex. A billion years ago was a time of love.

Here's to a billion years of sex!

 . . .

By a billion months ago (~83 million years) so much had happened! Tons of evolutionary diversity: from simple multicellular organisms, up through dinosaurs, and all the way to primitive mammals. And for the first time, mammals were growing their babies inside the mothers' bodies, so they could be born more grown, more developed, more ready to survive. (You'd never know it looking at human babies, but that's a very special case: think of gazelles standing immediately after birth.) The first placental mammal was born a billion months ago.

Here's to a billion months of mammals!

 . . .

By a billion weeks ago (~19 million years), mammals had become hugely successful. Primates had evolved, and some had even lost their tails and grown bigger brains. The first apes were born around a billion weeks ago, just as you were born a billion seconds ago.

Here's to a billion weeks of apes!

 . . .

Around a billion days ago (~2.7 million years), some of the apes learned to walk upright, and lost all of that unsightly body hair, allowing them to run great distances and sweat all over to keep cool. They learned to use basic stone tools. Homo habilis and homo erectus become the greatest long-distance runners in the animal kingdom (as are their ancestors, modern humans, today).

Here's to a billion days of standing upright!

 . . .

You, dear human, were born a billion seconds ago; the first humans were born a billion hours ago. About 120,000 years ago lived Y-chromosomal Adam and Mitochondrial Eve. Also around that time was the birth of speech. Adam and Eve and The Word were born a billion hours ago — and you were born a billion seconds ago.

Here’s to a billion hours of humans!

 . . .

A billion minutes ago (around year 100) was the peak of the Roman Empire, the Pax Romana, and the birth of Christianity. Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii. Bookbinding was invented, and the first codex (precursor to the modern book, much superior to scrolls or clay tablets) was born.

Here’s to a billion minutes of books!

 . . .

One billion years of sex.

One billion months of mammals.

One billion weeks of apes.

One billion days of standing upright.

One billion hours of humans.

One billion minutes of books.

And one billion seconds (so, so many seconds!) of you.

Here’s to you!