Things that I don't understand: Part 1 in a series

Obviously there are lots of things that I don't understand in the world, because the world is mysterious and confusing. Here are just a couple that have been on my mind lately.

The number one trillion
Everybody knows that numbers like one trillion are so big that they are practically impossible to understand. Everybody (most people) also knows that I am quite lazy and therefore never bothered trying to understand how big one trillion is.  Why would I try to understand one trillion when I could  live in a fools paradise where numbers like that have no place? Well, I was listening to the radio recently and someone said that one trillion is to one million as one million is to one dollar.
WOW. I thought to myself. I totally understand that! And WOW, I also thought to myself, one trillion is a really big number. I felt really great about knowing it.  But when I tried to pass this exciting knowledge on to some people at a backyard paella party recently, they told me that in fact one trillion can mean different things depending on the mode of calculation. Serves me right for having super smart friends I guess (J & Legsly: I'm referring to both of you here. I'm pretty sure Blephanie was as surprised as I was by this news about the number one trillion). But back to the number. WTF!? Since when is a number not actually the number you think it is? Do the people who figure out numbers think that because a trillion is so big they can just mess around with it? God nerds, why do you have to make it so hard??!! No wonder people don't like you.

Ned Kelly's bones and Mitochondrial eve

You couldn't walk five paces in this town last week without running in to a news story about Ned Kelly's bones. Here is one. Here is another. And here is one from the New York Times! There are two aspects of this that I don't really understand. First, I simply do not get why people are so hung up about Ned Kelly's bones. I mean, they had to be somewhere, didn't they? What does it matter if they are in an unmarked grave at a prison, in a museum or are in a nice family grave at a place called Greta where all his other peeps are (and must be a very nice with a name like Greta). What difference does it make? I know that he is everyone's favourite anti-hero, but that myth has been well and truly made y'all. Surely an old set of bones can't add to it!?
Even though I don't understand the bone obsession, of course I read all these articles because it is fun to indulge these things, and the science that allowed them to discover that the bones belonged to Neddy is very interesting. Apparently mitochondrial DNA was the real star of this show. Do you guys know about mitochondrial DNA? Wikipedia can tell you all about it if not. Did you know it is exclusively inherited from the mother? It's true. And did you also know that because mitochondrial DNA is exclusively inherited from the mother, folks can trace it all the way back to a common ancestor called Mitochondrial Eve who lived 200 000 years ago in East Africa ? It's also totally true! This lady connects every single one of us on our mothers sides! Doesn't that just blow your freaking minds?
It totally blows my mind guys.