Infinity Imagined (over at tumblr) found strange but visually compelling similarities between man-made cities and neurons by juxtaposing images of cities as seen from the International Space Station and of neurons.

In the comparison above, an unidentified city center and thoroughfares resemble the shape of the soma, dendrites and axon. The neuron of a neonatal rat was captured by the Wadsworth Center using a confocal microscope.

In this juxtaposition, the source of the neuronal image was identified incorrectly as Reabilitação Cognitiva, an online portal for cognitive rehabilitation. The image belongs to flickr user thelunch_box who stained Edinger-Westphal neurons in culture and captured the images using a Zeiss microscope and camera.

Check out more illustrations by Infinity Imagined here.

[Via Laughing Squid]