Free Republic

A Lithuanian man has had more than a kilogram of nails, screws, nuts and knives removed from his stomach by doctors, local media report. He had been swallowing metal objects for a month after quitting alcohol, doctors said. Some of the objects retrieved during a surgery in Klaipeda University Hospital were 10cm (4in) long, according to Lithuania's LRT public broadcaster. Surgeon Sarunas Dailidenas called it a "unique case". In its article (in Lithuanian), LRT published a KUH photo showing a surgical tray full of metal objects after the emergency three-hour operation. The man was brought by ambulance with severe abdominal...

The number of atoms in this silicon sphere is known given or taken 20 atoms each 10^9. The atom distance was measured by the X-ray interferometer on the left. Credit: Enrico Massa and Carlo Sasso ================================================================================================ An ongoing international effort to redefine the kilogram by 2018 has been helped by recent efforts from a team researchers from Italy, Japan and Germany to correlate two of the most precise measurements of Avogadro's number and obtain one averaged value that can be used for future calculations. Their results are published this week in the Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data. Avogadro's...

The German Nation Metrology Institute (PTB) in Braunschweig has set itself the enormous task of finding a new formula for measuring a kilogram. The weight is currently based on a metal cylinder called the International Prototype Kilogram that is kept in a safe in Paris. The problem is that the precious object is—very gradually—losing weight, according to scientists. […] A race is now underway between scientists around the world to find a way of defining an unchangeable kilogram without relying on a lump of metal, which is unsurprisingly rather complicated. Researchers at the PTB in Braunschweig claim to be very...

By JAMEY KEATEN, Associated Press Writer 6 minutes ago PARIS - A kilogram just isn't what it used to be. The 118-year-old cylinder that is the international prototype for the metric mass, kept tightly under lock and key outside Paris, is mysteriously losing weight — if ever so slightly. Physicist Richard Davis of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sevres, southwest of Paris, says the reference kilo appears to have lost 50 micrograms compared with the average of dozens of copies. "The mystery is that they were all made of the same material, and many were made at...

The kilogram may need to go on a diet. The international standard, a cylinder-shaped hunk of metal that defines the fundamental unit of mass, has gained tens of micrograms in weight from surface contamination, according to a new study. As a result, each country that has one of these standard masses has a slightly different definition of the kilogram, which could throw off science experiments that require very precise weight measurements or international trade in highly restricted items that are restricted by weight, such as radioactive materials. But ozone and ultraviolet light could be used to clean the kilograms without...

A ‘new urgency’ is how the New York Times, in a marvelous editorial this week, describes the rush to redefine the official kilogram. That famous weight and measure turns out to be what the newspaper describes as a cylinder of platinum and iridium maintained by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. It is kept there under three glass domes accessible by three separate keys. It is, the Times notes, more than 130 years old and is what the paper calls the “only remaining international standard in the metric system that is still a man-made object.” The “new urgency” comes...

More than a century ago, a small metal cylinder was forged in London and sent to a leafy suburb of Paris. The cylinder was about the size of a salt shaker and made of an alloy of platinum and iridium, an advanced material at the time. In Paris, scientists polished and weighed it carefully, until they determined that it was exactly one kilogram, around 2.2 pounds. Then, by international treaty, they declared it to be the international standard. Since 1889, the year the Eiffel Tower opened, that cylinder has been the standard against which every other kilogram on the planet...

<p>In the more than a century since 'perfect' platinum-iridium cylinders were first used as the world's kilogram standards, their weights have mysteriously fluctuated. Scientists are rethinking what the measure means.</p> <p>GAITHERSBURG, MD. -- Forty feet underground, secured in a temperature- and humidity-controlled vault here, lies Kilogram No. 20.</p>

The original prototype for the kilogram, stored under lock and key near Paris, appears to be losing weight. The cylinder, which dates back from 1889, seems to have lost 50 micrograms, compared with the average of dozens of copies of the original. Richard Davis, of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sevres, said: "The mystery is that they were all made of the same material, and many were made at the same time and kept under the same conditions, and yet the masses among them are slowly drifting apart." The one in Sevres is the original that the...

They will be the earth's roundest spheres, crafted by Australian scientists as part of an international hunt to find a new global standard kilogram. Ever since scientists discovered that the current standard -- a bar of platinum and iridium held in a French vault since 1889 -- was slowly deteriorating, the search has been on for a replacement. Using a single crystal of silicon-28 grown by Russian and German scientists over three years, a team of Sydney scientists and engineers will grind and polish two silvery balls, each weighing precisely one kilogram, with imperfections of less than 35 millionths of...