I am rummaging around on the Internet for material on why international organisations are so ineffective.

I suspect it's all to do with the Square/Cube law, identified by Galileo. See here:

Doubling the length of the sides of the square creates an area four times the size. The effect is greater still for volume - as 'size' grows, volumes change faster than surface area.

This means that if something grows and grows (on Earth), eventually its sheer weight must cause it to collapse.

All of which somehow shows that the larger any organism or organisation, the 'denser' the internal processes need to become to support the surging weight and the energy needed to keep it moving. Mass grows at the expense of relative strength and nimbleness.

All of which takes us back to the EU and our old friend, the formula for kinetic energy:

E_K = (1/2)mv²

While I mumble irrelevantly to myself about all this in the corner, check out this fine piece about the way monster and sci-fi movies have played fast and loose with these basic physical relationships as they apply to biology.

Would the Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) really have struggled to pick up a needle to fend off a spider?

And what in fact would have happened when the giant octopus in It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955) tried to pull down the Golden Gate bridge?

Read it - and find out.