Winter solstice: the importance of daylight | Dean Burnett

As today's Google doodle celebrates, it's the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. Be wary, as the amount of daylight we experience can affect our bodies and brains

It's the winter solstice. The shortest day of the year. Except it isn't. Today will last 24 hours, like every other day (give or take). Granted, what with the Earth's rotation gradually slowing down then your typical day is going to get increasingly long, but that's not anything we need to worry about right now.

Obviously, when people say it's the "shortest day" it means this day has the shortest period of daylight, as opposed to night time darkness, when compared to all the others. This is a consequences of the fact that planet Earth is "tilted" at an angle, so different parts of the planet are exposed to differing amounts of sunlight depending on where it is in its orbit. So that's nice.