Big

One major news that our man from Pluto told us during the research retreat was the establishment of the Department of Basic Medical Science.

(I'm not sure how new it is - we heard of it for quite some years.)

From a research point of view, it seems a good move. After all, hardly any anatomist or physiologist nowadays do conventional research in their own discipline. Modern medical journals would never accept a paper that describe any change that could be observed by bare eye - they prefer molecules and markers and p-values that are invisible with the best microscope.

Alas, as Hercule Poirot remarked in Murder on the Links, evidence of 1-foot long could be as important as another of 1-inch in length. Unfortunately, most of the extra-terrestrials are too much taken in by the magnifying glass of Sherlock Holmes; they see small things but deliberately neglect big ones.

My limited knowledge in neurology tells me that the sign is called simultanagnosia (see small objects but not big ones due to failure of integrating information from peripheral visual field), and the disease Balint’s syndrome. Oh, you could learn that much by reading Harrison - another huge object that most of us try to neglect.