Quantum mechanics is real. It's spooky as hell, but it's real. Without its microscopically small probabilistic effects, we wouldn't have superconductors, lasers, and many forms of computing and cryptography. But despite our laboratory certainty, what's less clear is the role it plays in the fundamental nature of reality. And as a recent survey published by Anton Zeilinger at the University of Vienna has revealed, quantum physicists are still very divided on how it's to be interpreted.

The poll had 16 multiple choice questions and was filled out by 33 participants attending the Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality conference in Austria in 2011. Technology Review reviews the answers, showing the utter lack of consensus:

For example, in answer to the question "Do you believe that physical objects have their properties well defined prior to and independent of measurement?", 48 per cent replied "no", while 52 per cent replied "yes, in some cases". A further 3 per cent said "yes in all cases" and 9 per cent were undecided (respondents were able to select more than one answer).

The question "What is your favourite interpretation of quantum mechanics?" had 12 possible answers. The most popular answer was the Copenhagen interpretation with 42 per cent but 18 per cent chose the many-worlds interpretation. 21 per cent admitted to having switched their interpretation several times with one respondent writing that he sometimes switched interpretations several times a day.

The question "When will we have a working and useful quantum computer?" drew an interesting spread of responses. Only 9 per cent thought this would be possible within 10 years while 15 per cent said never. The answer "In 10-25 years" drew 42 per cent of the respondents while "In 25-50 years" drew 30 per cent.

Interestingly, there was some agreement. More than two-thirds believed that there is no fundamental limit to quantum theory, and that it should be possible for objects — no matter how big — to retain their applicability to quantum superpositions like Schrödinger's cat. This is a fairly important development, as survey co-author Maximilian Schlosshauer points out: "So the era where quantum theory was associated only with the atomic realm appears finally over."

You can read the entire survey here. More coverage here and here.

Image: Shutterstock/ l i g h t p o e t.

It's been eight years since the European Space Agency's Huygens probe landed on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Now, to celebrate this anniversary, and to make sense of the data sent back to Earth, a new rendering has been put together by the ESA to show the landing in exquisitely precise detail. As you watch the video, remember that this landing still marks the most remote alien surface ever visited by a human probe.

Huygens had been dropped off 21 days prior by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Once it began its descent, it took the probe 2.5 hours to make it to the surface.

It's one of the most iconic images in all of science fiction: the stretching of stars as a ship makes the jump to lightspeed. But as a group of physics students at the University of Leicester has revealed, it wouldn't actually look like this. Instead, and assuming a ship could travel at nearly the speed of light, a crew would see a giant, fuzzy orb in the distance. And as the students' approximations have shown, that's not the half of it.

For their study, the students assumed that the Millennium Falcon (yes, this was the wording used in the study) is traveling at 99.99995 percent the speed of light (c) as it zips past the Earth towards the Sun (at a distance of 1 AU). Obviously, in keeping with the laws established by Albert Einstein, and unlike some sci-fi interpretations of faster-than-light space travel (i.e. "hyperspace"), the students could not assume a value greater than c.

The team, which consisted of Riley Connors, Katie Dexter, Joshua Argyle, and Cameron Scoular, discovered that, as the crew approaches near-lightspeed, they would see a central disc of bright light — the cosmic background radiation left over from the Big Bang.

And fascinatingly, they would not see any signs of stars in the distance or in the peripheries. This would be on account of a cosmological Doppler effect — the same effect that causes a police car siren or train bell to change pitch as it travels past an observer.

In this case, instead of a police car or train zipping past, a Doppler blueshift effect would be created by the electromagnetic radiation — including visible light — that is rapidly moving towards the crew. This effect, say the researchers, would shorten the wavelength of electromagnetic radiation. From the perspective of Han, Luke, and Leia, the wavelength of the light from neighboring stars would decrease and shift out of the visible spectrum into the X-ray range — thus making these stars invisible to the human eye.

Consequently, the Millennium Falcon's crew would be limited to seeing a central orb of light as the cosmic microwave background radiation is shifted into the visible spectrum (this background radiation was caused by the Big Bang and is spread evenly across the universe).

And interestingly, the students also realized that, when traveling at such an intense speed, a ship would be subject to incredible pressure exerted by X-rays — an effect that would push back against the ship, causing it to slow down. The researchers likened the effect to the high pressure exerted against deep-ocean submersibles exploring extreme depths. To deal with this, a spaceship would have to store extra amounts of energy to compensate for this added pressure.

Additionally, the crew would be well advised to wear eye protection, and to somehow protect themselves from harmful X-ray radiation.

The study was published in this year's University of Leicester's Journal of Physics Special Topics. It typically features original short papers written by students in their final year of their four-year Master of Physics degree, where they're encouraged to be imaginative with their topics.

You can read the entire study here.

Supplementary source and image: University of Leicester.

For Zack Kopplin, it all started back in 2008 with the passing of the Louisiana Science Education Act. The bill made it considerably easier for teachers to introduce creationist textbooks into the classroom. Outraged, he wrote a research paper about it for a high school English class. Nearly five years later, the 19-year-old Kopplin has become one of the fiercest — and most feared — advocates for education reform in Louisiana. We recently spoke to him to learn more about how he's making a difference.

Kopplin, who is studying history at Rice University, had good reason to be upset after the passing of the LSEA — an insidious piece of legislation that allows teachers to bring in their own supplemental materials when discussing politically controversial topics like evolution or climate change. Soon after the act was passed, some of his teachers began to not just supplement existing texts, but to rid the classroom of established science books altogether. It was during the process to adopt a new life science textbook in 2010 that creationists barraged Louisiana's State Board of Education with complaints about the evidence-based science texts. Suddenly, it appeared that they were going to be successful in throwing out science textbooks.

A pivotal moment

"This was a pivotal moment for me," Kopplin told io9. "I had always been a shy kid and had never spoken out before — I found myself speaking at a meeting of an advisory committee to the State Board of Education and urging them to adopt good science textbooks — and we won." The LSEA still stood, but at least the science books could stay.

No one was more surprised of his becoming a science advocate than Kopplin himself. In fact, after writing his English paper in 2008 — when he was just 14-years-old — he assumed that someone else would publicly take on the law. But no one did.

"I didn't expect it to be me," he said. "By my senior year though, I realized that no one was going to take on the law, so for my high school senior project I decided to get a repeal bill."

Indeed, it was the ensuing coverage of the science textbook adoption issue that launched Kopplin as an activist. It also gave him the confidence to start the campaign to repeal the LSEA.

Encouraged by Barbara Forrest, a philosophy professor at Southeastern Louisiana University — and a staunch critic of intelligent design and the Discovery Institute — Kopplin decided to write a letter that could be signed by Nobel laureate scientists in support of the repeal. To that end, he contacted Sir Harry Kroto, a British chemist who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley. Kroto helped him to draft the letter — one that has now been signed by 78 Nobel laureates.

In addition, Kopplin has introduced two bills to repeal the LSEA, both of which have been sponsored by State Senator Karen Carter Peterson. He plans on producing a third bill later this spring. And along with the Nobel laureates, he has the support of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), New Orleans City Council, and many others.

But as the early results of his efforts have shown, it's not going to be an easy battle.

"We've had gains over the last few years," he says, "But our first attempt to repeal the LSEA was defeated 5-1 in committee, and in our second attempt we lost 2-1." Kopplin is hoping to get out of committee this year.

He also has his eyes set on vouchers. After an Alternet story came out about a school in the Louisiana voucher program teaching that the Loch Ness Monster was real and disproved evolution, Kopplin looked deeper into the program and found that this wasn't just one school, but at least 19 other schools, too.

School vouchers, he argues, unconstitutionally fund the teaching of creationism because many of the schools in these programs are private fundamentalist religious schools who are teaching creationism.

"These schools have every right to teach whatever they want — no matter how much I disagree with it — as long as they are fully private," he says. "But when they take public money through vouchers, these schools need to be accountable to the public in the same way that public schools are and they must abide by the same rules." Kopplin is hoping for more transparency in these programs so the public can see what is being taught with taxpayers' money.

Facing opposition

His efforts, needless to say, have not gone unnoticed — particularly by his opponents. He's been called the Anti-Christ, a stooge of "godless liberal college professors," and was even accused of causing Hurricane Katrina. Kopplin cooly brushes these incidents aside, saying they're just silly distractions.

But some of the most aggressive broadsides, he says, have come from state legislators.

"I'm not talking threats or name calling, but they were really something to experience," he says. [In addition to the video at left, Kopplin provided other examples that can be seen here and here)

"I don't enjoy upsetting people, but you have to brush the attacks off," he says. "I know that I'm fighting for a good cause — and I would be neglecting my duty if I stopped my campaign just because I felt uncomfortable about opposition."

And perhaps not surprisingly, a number of people have refused to take Kopplin seriously on account of his age. "Oh, for sure — there have absolutely been people who have dismissed me because I'm still a kid," he told us. Some of his opponents have even suggested that his parents are really the ones behind the campaign — an accusation he flatly denies.

"They have their own lives to live, and certainly don't have time to run a public issue campaign," he says.

"What disturbs me though, is when other kids are the ones to dismiss me based on age," he told io9. "They see a 19 year old kid and can't believe that I can actually go out and change the world. Too many of my peers have this attitude that they need to dress nicely, sit quietly, and wait until we are adults to change things. This attitude must change. My generation needs to speak out for what we believe."

It's simply not science

And indeed, Kopplin is a passionate defender of scientific inquiry, and vociferously rejects the notion that creationism and evolution should be taught side-by-side.

"Creationism is not science, and shouldn't be in a public school science class — it's that simple," he says. "Often though, creationists do not, or are unwilling, to recognize this." Science, he argues, is observable, naturalistic, testable, falsifiable, and expandable — everything that creationism is not.

But what also drives Kopplin is the inherent danger he sees in teaching creationism.

"Creationism confuses students about the nature of science," he says. "If students don't understand the scientific method, and are taught that creationism is science, they will not be prepared to do work in genuine fields, especially not the biological sciences. We are hurting the chances of our students having jobs in science, and making discoveries that will change the world."

He worries that, if Louisiana (and Tennessee, which also has a similar law) insists on teaching students creationism, students will not be the ones discover the cure to AIDS or cancer. "We won't be the ones to repair our own damaged wetlands and protect ourselves from more hurricanes like Katrina," he says.

Moreover, he's also concerned that teaching creationism will harm economic development.

"Just search creationism on Monster Jobs or Career Builder and tell me how many creationist jobs you find," he asks. Kopplin tells us about how this past Spring, Kevin Carman, the former Dean of LSU's College School of Science (now the Executive Vice President and Provost for the University of Nevada, Reno) testified in the Louisiana Senate Education Committee about how he had lost researchers and scientists to other states because of the Louisiana Science Education Act.

"But it also violates the separation of church and state," he says. "Teaching Biblical creationism is promoting one very specific fundamentalist version of Christianity, and violating the rights of every other American citizen who doesn't subscribe to those beliefs. So it would be stomping on the rights of Catholics, Mainline Protestants, Buddhists, Humanists, Muslims, Hindus, and every other religious group in the country.

These creationists, he argues, would be horrified to see the Vedas being taught in science class. "And they would have every right to be," he says, "That's how the separation of church and state works and it's the foundation of our country."

Changes needed

Kopplin is also concerned about the future, and how unprepared the United States has become.

"We don't just deny evolution," he says, "We are denying climate change and vaccines and other mainstream science. I'm calling for a Second Giant Leap to change the perception of science in the world."

To that end, Kopplin would like to see $1 trillion of new science funding and an end to denialist science legislation. He wants to see the American public become more aware and better educated about science.

"My generation is going to have to face major challenges to our way of living — and the way to overcome them is through rapid scientific advancement," he says. "But as as of right now, America has a science problem."

Images: Baton Rouge Advocate, The Moderate Voice.

In what sounds uncomfortably like a scenario from The Matrix, a startup in Corvallis, Oregon, has developed a small chip that can turn body heat into electric energy. The chip, which absorbs heat directly from the skin, channels energy through a thermoelectric generator that converts it into electric power. In future, the chip will enable us to power and recharge our handheld and wearable electronic devices with our own bodies.

Developed by Perpetua Power, it's called TEGwear Technology. Similar to the way that solar cells work to extract energy from sunlight, body-heat absorbed by TEGwear excites electrons and optimizes this energy. It could power body-worn medical, fitness, and safety related electronics. Each single, square-inch TEGwear chip generates up to three volts.

FastCompany reports:

Originally developed using technology licensed from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (a Department of Energy research lab in Richland, Washington), TEGwear-powered devices are still in development and won't hit the market until 2014. But this ultimate clean tech has a whole host of potential applications, from mobile health to national security. The company will demo the device on a new Swatch Touch watch at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this month. In addition, it has a grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a prototype wristband to track the whereabouts of people with Alzheimer's as well as funding from Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Division to power wearable devices used for surveillance operations. It's also partnered with several private companies to develop body-powered smartphone accessories (like headsets), health-monitoring devices (such as wearable heart-rate monitors), and military applications (like monitoring a soldier's vital signs and location while on a combat mission).

The added bonus of using body-powered devices? They eliminate the toxic waste generated by the heavy metals used in the billions of batteries we currently use — and toss — each year. In other words, your body heat is good, clean energy.

More at FastCo.

Last year, geneticists developed a new techniquethat allows them directly insert genes into bacterial DNA — or remove them. It was a powerful discovery, one that finally offered researchers a cheap and easy way to remove precise sections of a bacterial genome. And now, MIT researchers led by George Church have proven that the technique will also work in human cells — a confirmation that could transform the way genetic medicine is done, and introduce advanced therapies for genetic diseases, cancer, and AIDS.

According to the new study, two different developments allowed this to happen: zinc-finger nucleases and TALEN (Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases) proteins. These techniques allow researchers to hone in on a particular part of a genome and snip the double-stranded DNA at a precise spot.

UC Berkeley reports:

Researchers can use these methods to make two precise cuts to remove a piece of DNA and, if an alternative piece of DNA is supplied, the cell will plug it into the cut instead. In this way, doctors can excise a defective or mutated gene and replace it with a normal copy. Sangamo Biosciences, a clinical stage biospharmaceutical company, has already shown that replacing one specific gene in a person infected with HIV can make him or her resistant to AIDS.

Both the zinc finger and TALEN techniques require synthesizing a large new gene encoding a specific protein for each new site in the DNA that is to be changed. By contrast, the new technique uses a single protein that requires only a short RNA molecule to program it for site-specific DNA recognition, Doudna said.

In the new Science Express paper, Church compared the new technique, which involves an enzyme called Cas9, with the TALEN method for inserting a gene into a mammalian cell and found it five times more efficient.

"It (the Cas9-RNA complex) is easier to make than TALEN proteins, and it's smaller," making it easier to slip into cells and even to program hundreds of snips simultaneously, he said. The complex also has lower toxicity in mammalian cells than other techniques, he added.

"It's too early to declare total victory" over TALENs and zinc-fingers, Church said, "but it looks promising."

More.

Image via Jennifer Doudna/UC Berkeley.

On December 17 of last year, the NASA GRAIL mission came to a close when the Ebb spacecraft that had been orbiting the moon crashed into a mountain near its north pole. Three days prior to this planned impact, two cameras aboard the spacecraft took a series of images — now, NASA has stitched together the photos to create this dramatic video showing Ebb's perspective as it flew over the lunar surface.

The first part of the video consists of 931 individual frames, and was taken by the forward facing camera. The second part, taken by the rear-facing camera, is comprised of 1,498 individual frames. The entire thing is played back at six times the rate of Ebb's true orbital speed. The video was taken about six miles (10 km) above the northern hemisphere of the moon's far side, near the Jackson impact crater.

A number of Chinese cities, including Beijing, are currently experiencing the worst episode of air quality in recent memory. Residents have been told to stay inside, and the Chinese government ordered factories to scale back on their emissions. Hospitals have been busy, experiencing a 20 to 30 percent increase in patients complaining of respiratory issues. NASA recently released a hi-res photo showing the scale of the pollution as seen from space.

Taken on January 14 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite, the image shows extensive haze, low clouds, and fog over the region.

According to NASA, the gray and yellow tinges amidst the bright clouds are indicative of the pollution. In the cloud-free areas, globs of gray and brown smog can be seen obscuring the cities below.

For comparison, NASA has provided an image of the area taken on January 3 (below). It also has an image comparison tool available here.

In terms of the air quality itself, NASA writes:

Also at the time of the image, the air quality index (AQI) in Beijing was 341. An AQI above 300 is considered hazardous to all humans, not just those with heart or lung ailments. AQI below 50 is considered good. On January 12, the peak of the current air crisis, AQI was 775 the U.S Embassy Beijing Air Quality Monitor-off the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scale-and PM2.5 was 886 micrograms per cubic meter.

Source: NASA.

Images: NASA/JPL.

As humans, we like to think that we have a monopoly on living the good life. But we shouldn't assume that other animals don't also enjoy their lives and revel in their extraordinary abilities. Here are 9 animals that are probably having more fun than you right now.

Before we get started, it's important to note that many of the animals listed here appear to be living extremely worthwhile and exciting lives — but that's from our perspective. For all we know, being an airborne apex predator or a shape-shifting aquatic cephalopod is as banal as walking or brushing our teeth (but I doubt it). We're deliberately anthropomorphizing, here — but that's the point. We're having fun imagining what life must be like as another creature.

1. Dolphins

Nearly everyone wonders what it would be like to be a dolphin. And indeed, they certainly look like they're having fun. Dolphins, of which there are over 36 different species (including orcas), have large hydrodynamic bodies that are perfectly adapted to the water, allowing them to reach speeds of 25 miles per hour (40 kph). They use this speed to full advantage, sometimes travelling in excess of 100 miles (180 km) per day. Studies show they have a neurological architecture very similar to our own, and are capable of passing the mirror test. They've been observed to play (I once body-surfaced alongside a bottlenose dolphin in Florida), and even create their own art. They communicate with each other using a complex series of clicks, burst-pulses, and whistles, which they use for echolocation and signature names (yes, dolphins actually have their own names). They also live in fission-fusion social arrangements, which means dolphins come and go between pods as they please — no questions asked. They have a very liberal attitude towards sex — exchanging partners at will and engaging in orgies. Of course, being a dolphin has its challenges; males have been known to get sexually aggressive with both females and males.

2. Bonobos

If there's a single saying that best encapsulates what life must be like for the bonobo, it's "make love, not war." These gentle great apes — the closest living relative to humans — are constantly having sex with each other, and for any number of reasons. They use sex to greet each other, as a way to prevent and alleviate social conflict, for reconciling (yes, bonobos have make-up sex), and for the pure enjoyment of it. They've also been observed to engage in French tongue kissing, face-to-face sexual intercourse, and even oral sex. Homosexuality is widely practiced (by both genders). They also refrain from forming monogamous relationships, and do not discriminate based on age. Now while some might call this a feminist utopia, it's important to note that it is a matriarchal system — and sex is often used as a form of control; female bonobos, in a coalition with other females, will withhold sex from non-cooperative males. That said, they are by far the most peaceful primate on the planet.

3. Domesticated Pets

A number of species have had the misfortune of being domesticated by humans, including various beasts of burden and livestock animals. But some, like cats and dogs, have benefited tremendously by forging a mutually beneficial inter-species relationship. No longer needing to earn an honest living in the forest, cats and dogs are utterly pampered and loved by their human hosts. Yes, some of these animals are neglected and don't always live in the most appropriate conditions, but for the millions upon millions who do, life is good.

4. Eagles

As grounded terrestrial creatures, we're hopelessly envious of birds. But as far as flying animals go, the eagle clearly stands above the rest. Eagles, which comprise more than sixty species, sit comfortably atop the food chain and are the premier apex predators of the avian world. They are large and powerful birds, featuring a heavy head and beak. And indeed, their flying and predating abilities would truly be something to experience. Soaring high above the ground, they use their extraordinary vision to spot prey at extreme distances. In fact, using their highly specialized eyes, they have a visual acuity that's 3.6 times better than our own. And with their large wingspans (some Alaskan bald eagles have been measured at an eight foot length), they swoop down on unsuspecting prey, eating everything from fish to large mammals. There have even been accounts of eagles being able to take off with loads in excess of 15 lbs (6.8 kg).

5. Cheetahs

Being able to run like a cheetah would be a blast, with their specs sounding like something right out of Car & Driver. The world's fastest land animal, the cheetah can accelerate from 0 to 62 miles per hour (100 km/h) in just three seconds. That's faster than the 2013 Corvette 427, which needs just under four seconds to reach the same speed. The cheetah's top speed is around 60 to 65 miles per hour (96.5 to 104 km/hr) and it can sustain this for nearly 1,600 feet, which is a half-kilometer. It uses this speed to hunt for gazelles and impalas — and it does so with startling efficiency, achieving a success rate of nearly 50% .

6. Octopuses

Though it might sound completely otherworldly and bizarre, the daily adventures of an octopus would be fascinating to experience. Despite having to raise themselves from birth (their mothers die soon thereafter), octopuses use their remarkable intelligence to learn about the world around them from scratch. In turn, they are extremely inquisitive, excellent problem solvers, and even playful (check out this account of an octopus who stole a diver's camera). They're also incredibly in tune with their environment; they can morph their bodies, including changing the pigmentation and texture of their skin, to mimic undersea objects and even other sea creatures. Indeed, as the efforts of neuroscientists like Mark Hall and David Edelman are showing, octopi are far more intelligent and self-aware than we often give them credit for.

7. Sloths

Fun is in the eye of the beholder, and for some, that means rest and relaxation. No mammal better exemplifies this than the sloth. Because of its limited diet — which consists primarily of leaves, buds, and tender shoots — the sloth has evolved an agonizingly slow metabolism. Leaves provide very little energy and nutrition and are difficult to digest. So sloths have evolved slow-acting stomachs with multiple compartments in which symbiotic bacteria break down the leaves. This process can take as much as an entire month! Consequently, the sloth's slow metabolic rate allows it to rest at a body temperature of 30 to 34 °C (86–93 °F) (human body temperature is 37 °C (98.6 °F)). They move incredibly slowly (on the ground they can only move at a speed of 6.5 feet per minute (2 meters), and sleep upwards of 15 to 18 hours per day. Sloths have specialized hands and feet which feature large claws allowing them to hang upside-down from branches without effort. They sometimes give birth in this passive position — and even die (their bodies are often found still hanging off tree branches).

8. Sugar Gliders

Imagine being a creature that glides from tree to tree all night long, pausing only to gorge on sugary nectarous foods. Yeah, that's the sugar glider, a marsupial that we're all deeply envious of. Though similar to the tree squirrel, it's not related. Found in Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea, the sugar glider uses is flaps of loose skin which it spreads to expose the gliding membranes. It can glide 50 meters or more, and can control the direction of its flight by moving its legs and tail. An omnivore, it prefers to eat acacia gum, eucalyptus sap, manna, and honeydew.

9. Lions

As Mel Brooks once said, "It's good to be the king." And indeed, it's also good to be a lion. Setting aside the fact that humans are slowly driving this species into extinction, the lion is a fearsome carnivore with virtually no predators to be concerned about. And indeed, given a lifestyle that essentially involves hunting, eating, playing, sleeping, and having lots of sex — it's definitely a lifestyle to be envious of. In most prides, lionesses do the hunting, while the males stay at home to guard the young. They mostly hunt by stalking and launching a surprise attack at close distances, preferring wildebeests, impalas, and zebras. And if hunting seems like too much of a chore, they can always steal food from hyenas, or simply look for signs of vultures gorging on a ready meal. Adults will eat anywhere from 5 kg (11 lb) to 7 kg (15.5 lb) of meat each day.

But when it comes time for sex, that's when the fun really starts. A lioness often mates with more than one male when she is in heat, and mating bouts can last up to several days — with couples sometimes doing the nasty up to 20 to 40 times per day. In fact, they have sex so frequently that they basically stop eating. But not to paint a completely ideal picture, males sometimes fight to the death, and they often commit infanticide.

Top image: Shutterstock.com/sad; bonobo: Sergey Uryadnikov/shutterstock, dogs: Elena Elisseeva/shutterstock, lion: EcoPrint/shutterstock.

For those of you looking to re-create the Tron gaming experience, this new flooring technology from Germany's ASB Systembau GMBH may be the thing for you. Billed as "the most advanced flooring system in the world," the ASB GlassFloor system utilizes reinforced glass panels which are set on an aluminum substructure embedded with lighting elements. Let the games begin!

The surface is designed to emulate hardwood courts and it still meets European guidelines for a variety of sports, including squash, badminton, and volleyball. Its adjustable lane lines and markings allow organizers to literally change the kind of sport that can be played on it on the fly. It can also display video and be converted into a gigantic video screen.

From the manufacturer:

The floor is made from tempered security glass and can withstand enormous impact. The panels are made from two specially-treated glass plates held together by a 2mm PVB safety layer. The glass panels can be produced to a size larger than 2×2 metres and make the floor longer lasting than any conventional floor. This is why in 2007 we have been able to install the first open air squash court on a cruise ship, withstanding the impact of sea water and perpetual movement over years.

ASB has supplied more than 15 major squash tournaments with the floor. Its biggest project yet is a 500m² sports floor in use daily at a German school. The technology has also withstood long term outdoor tests without any signs of aging.

The surface of the glass undergoes several special treatments to achieve ideal elasticity, friction and reflection of light. After years of extensive testing we have reached a result where the floor does not reflect too much to be a distraction but still gives a slight reflection which compares to the effect marble has on the eye. Also deflection and friction of the floor achieve equal or better results than conventional sport floors. The floor is ISO and EN certified. The same treatment that ensures the dim reflection also causes scratches to remain invisible. The surface can be in almost any colour you like. The colour of the floor is determined by special foil coat applied to the bottom of the floor and can be changed even after years.

Source and more at Core77.

Images: ASB Systembau GMBH.

Over the past decade, doctors have noticed a dramatic decrease in reported cases of crab lice, also known as pubic lice (Phthirus pubis). The reason, they say, is actually quite simple: the rise in popularity of pubic grooming in both women and men. Pubic lice, it would seem, are currently facing an environmental disaster.

Indeed, this habitat destruction started back in the 1990s when several Brazilian sisters opened a bikini wax salon in Manhattan. Since that time, the practice of keeping the hairs trim in the nether regions has skyrocketed — much to the detriment of the parasites.

Writing in Bloomberg, Jason Gale and Shannon Pettypiece explain:

Clipping, waxing and shaving the groin destroy the optimal habitat of pubic lice. The practice has helped spur sales of depilatory products for companies such as Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) and Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc. (RB/)

The global market for depilatories was worth $4.69 billion last year, according to London-based Euromonitor International Ltd., which estimates sales increased at a 7.6 percent average annual clip the past decade. Cincinnati-based P&G, Slough, England-based Reckitt Benckiser and Energizer Holdings Inc. (ENR), based in St. Louis, dominate the market, which Euromonitor predicts will reach $5.6 billion by 2016.

A majority of college men and women in the U.S. and Australia remove all or part of their pubic hair, researchers at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, reported in a 2011 paper, citing surveys and research by other scholars. In the U.K., 99 percent of women older than 16 years remove some hair, most commonly from the under arms, legs and pubic area, a 2005 study found.

As Gale and Pettypiece also note, more than 80 percent of college students in the U.S. remove all or some of their pubic hair, and it's a a trend that's increasing in other countries.

"In Australia, Sydney's main sexual health clinic hasn't seen a woman with pubic lice since 2008 and male cases have fallen 80 percent from about 100 a decade ago," they write.

Pubic lice, a sexually transmitted infection, is estimated to affect 2 to 10 percent of the human population. It doesn't transmit other infectious diseases, but the crabs are a tremendous nuisance. The female louse needs to mate only once to remain fertile throughout her entire life and can lay eggs every day. But without a suitable environment, it's out of luck.

More here.

Image: David Scharf/Science Faction/Getty Images>Bloomberg.

Environmentalist website Conservation India is reporting on the rise of a new and disturbing spectator sport that has emerged in south India's Coimbatore forests. It's the practice of "elephant taunting," a bizarre and incredibly dangerous activity in which onlookers harass elephants to the point of retaliation. The activity has likely contributed to the dramatic rise in Human-Elephant Conflict (HEC) over the past couple of years, prompting locals and environmentalists to call upon the authorities to put a stop to the ridiculous practice.

The Coimbatore Forests are home to a significant population of elephants. The region, which extends from Walayar in the South to Sirumugai in the North, provides six major corridors for the elephants to travel. But it's also home to hundreds of factories and multinational corporations. This collision of nature with human activities has increased the frequency of interactions between the two species, and not for the better.

To understand what was going on, Conservation India sent two reporters, Aritra Kshettry and Sreedhar Vijayakrishnan, to the area to investigate. Soon after their arrival, they were greeted by the sight of a trumpeting, distressed elephant running scared at the edge of the forest.

They write:

On the outskirts of Coimbatore city, brick kilns stand in the place of what used to be an elephant corridor used by generations of these gentle giants. It appears that ‘elephant-taunting' has become a spectator sport in the region. A well-connected network of local informants sends messages to people interested in the ‘game' when elephants are spotted. As soon as word spreads about a herd's location, the crowd pours in on motorbikes, cycles and on foot. Our enquiries revealed that although there are local residents involved in such acts, most of the people who take part in the ‘game' are migrant brick kiln workers from faraway places.

One day, we received news from our local contact about a herd of elephants coming to the edge of the forest. By the time we reached the spot, we were shocked to find ourselves amidst a mob of local youths, about a hundred strong, who were jeering and howling at a herd of elephants and provoking them. The matriarch positioned herself between the crowd and the herd, trying in vain to calm the young members of her family. Sometimes the men, mostly youths trying to prove their machismo, walked right up to the elephants to instigate them and induce some reaction. The elephants reacted by mock charges now and then, when the men came too close. The poor animals did not know how to respond to the audacious advances of the unruly mob.

The elephants were clearly traumatized, as reflected by their constant distress calls. These seemed to goad the people further to amplify their howling. The elephants appeared to be waiting for nightfall to cross the clearing and move into the next forest patch, which is contiguous with the Nilgiris landscape. The barbaric spectacle we witnessed seems to be a regular affair, and the crowd seems to draw a sadistic pleasure from confronting the gentle giants and elicit some sort of distress response.

Once nightfall arrived, the crowds dispersed, and the elephants tried to make their way into an adjacent forest patch. But the episode left Kshettry and Vijayakrishnan convinced that it was a disaster waiting to happen. And indeed, a week after they observed this taunting, the Hindu reported the death of two persons as a result of similar incidents.

Images via Conservation India.

For the past four years, photographer and biochemist Linden Gledhill has been taking macro focus shots of various butterfly and moth wings. Gledhill, who has also photographed natural and homegrown snowflakes, designed his own rig (with the help of Cognisys) to help create these intricate and beautiful close-up perspectives.

All images via Linden Gledhill. Top image is of a monarch butterfly wing.

Over at his Flickr page, Gledhill describes how he did it:

Cognisys, the makers of StopShot have developed a fully automated macro focusing rail. This machine is incredibly well made and accurate down to 0.01mm. The controller automates the laborious process of capturing the images needed to build a high resolution macro stack by controlling not only the macro rail but also the camera.

Most photos were taken at 7X life size using flash. Image: Sunset moth.

To increase depth of field (DOF), multiple images were combined using focus stacking. Image: Papilio blumei fruhstorferi.

Gledhill is now using a video camera lens "Canon TV lens JF16mm 1:1.4" reverse mounted on extension tubes, which gives him about 17X magnification. Image: Papilio blumei fruhstorferi.

Image: Butterfly wing scales.

Image: Red admiral wing.

Image: Moth wing scales.

Image: Sun moth wing.

Tons more here.

H/t Notcot.

Bruce Sterling wrote influential works like Schismatrix and Islands in the Net, plus he practically invented cyberpunk (with all due respect, of course, to William Gibson and Rudy Rucker). We are serious fans of his work. And if his recent comments about the potential risks of greater-than-human artificial intelligence — or lack thereof — are any indication, he's itching to start a giant fight among futurists.

Sterling made his remarks in the current manifestation of the Edge's annual Big Question. This year, editor John Brockman asked his coterie of experts to tell us what we should be most worried about. In response, Sterling penned a four paragraph article saying that we shouldn't fear the onset of super AI because a "Singularity has no business model." He writes:

This aging sci-fi notion has lost its conceptual teeth. Plus, its chief evangelist, visionary Ray Kurzweil, just got a straight engineering job with Google. Despite its weird fondness for AR goggles and self-driving cars, Google is not going to finance any eschatological cataclysm in which superhuman intelligence abruptly ends the human era. Google is a firmly commercial enterprise.

It's just not happening. All the symptoms are absent. Computer hardware is not accelerating on any exponential runway beyond all hope of control. We're no closer to "self-aware" machines than we were in the remote 1960s. Modern wireless devices in a modern Cloud are an entirely different cyber-paradigm than imaginary 1990s "minds on nonbiological substrates" that might allegedly have the "computational power of a human brain." A Singularity has no business model, no major power group in our society is interested in provoking one, nobody who matters sees any reason to create one, there's no there there.

So, as a Pope once remarked, "Be not afraid." We're getting what Vinge predicted would happen without a Singularity, which is "a glut of technical riches never properly absorbed." There's all kinds of mayhem in that junkyard, but the AI Rapture isn't lurking in there. It's no more to be fretted about than a landing of Martian tripods.

In response, a number of commentators spoke up.

Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution reposted Sterling's article, prompting a healthy and heated discussion. Over at the New Yorker, Gary Marcus noted that Sterling's "optimism has little to do with reality." And Kevin Drum of Mother Jones wrote, "I'm genuinely stonkered by this. If we never achieve true AI, it will be because it's technologically beyond our reach for some reason. It sure won't be because nobody's interested and nobody sees any way to make money out of it."

Now, it's completely possible that Sterling is trolling us, but I doubt it. Rather, his take on the Singularity, and how it will come about, is completely skewed. As noted, there is most absolutely a business model for something like this to happen, and we're already starting to see these seeds begin to sprout.

And indeed, one leading artificial intelligence researcher has estimated that there's roughly a trillion dollars to be made alone as we move from keyword search to genuine AI question-answering on the web.

Sterling's misconception about the Singularity is a frustratingly common one, a mistaken notion that it will arise as the result of efforts to create "self aware" machines that mimic the human brain. Such is hardly the case. Rather, it's about the development of highly specialized and efficient intelligence systems — systems that will eventually operate outside of human comprehension and control.

Already today, machines like IBM's Watson (who defeated the world's best Jeopardy players) and computers that trade stocks at millisecond speeds are precursors to this. And it's very much in the interests of private corporations to develop these technologies, whether it be to program kiosk machines at corner stores, create the next iteration of Apple's SIRI, or program the first generation of domestic robots.

And indeed, it's not a coincidence that Google recently hired Ray Kurzweil — author of The Singularity is Near — to help it build a rival system to SIRI.

Moreover, the U.S. military, as it continues to push its technologies forward, will most certainly be interested in creating AI systems that work at speeds and computational strengths far beyond what humans are capable of. The day is coming when human decision-making will be removed from the battlefield.

And does anyone seriously believe that the Pentagon will allow other countries to get a head start on any of this? The term ‘arms race' most certainly seems to apply — especially considering that AI can be used to develop other advanced forms of military technologies.

Finally, there's the potential for non-business and non-military interests to spawn super AI. Neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, and computer scientists are all hacking away at the problem — and they may very well be the first to reach the finish line. Human cognition and its relation to AI is still an unsolved problem for scientists, and for that reason they will continue to push the envelope of what's technically possible.

I'll give the last word to Kevin Drum:

As for the Singularity, a hypothesized future of runaway technological advancement caused by better and better AI, who knows? It might be the end result of AI, or it might not. But if it happens, it will be a natural evolution of AI, not something that happens because someone came up with a business model for it.

Image: Bruce Sterling/OARN.

The Tohoku-oki earthquake and tsunami brought unimaginable devastation to the coastal areas of Japan in March 2011. But as a new study in Marine Geology suggests, it also reshaped the ocean floor, forming large underwater dunes as the massive waves rolled into the eastern seaboard, and then slowly pulled away.

The study, which was conducted by Kazuhisa Goto, a geologist at Tohoku University in Japan, relied upon data collected by a research team that went out into Kesennuma Bay about twenty days after the tsunami. The data, which was collected to assess the safety of the area for incoming ships, was used by Goto to chart the topological characteristics of the seafloor.

The area being studied was about 55 miles (90 km) northeast of the city of Sendai — so it was fairly far out. When the tsunami rolled over this particular area of the Pacific, the waves reached a height of 36 feet (11 meters), and it disturbed the sandy and silty seafloor 30 to 50 feet (10 to 15 m) below.

Goto discovered that the tsunami created dunes up to 65 feet (20 m) long and 6 feet (1.8 m) high. These dunes were not present on the seafloor before the 2011 tsunami. It's the first direct evidence that tsunamis can rework sea bottom sediments — and even influence a marine ecosystem.

The research team is not certain how many dunes the tsunami may have created. But in conversation with Our Amazing Planet, Goto said: "The tsunami wave current was very strong and I would not be surprised if dunes were formed across the entire bay, plus slightly deeper areas, but some of them may have been erased since then by normal post-tsunami wave activity."

As a result of their findings, Goto is recommending that marine ecosystems be monitored following significant tsunamis.

Read the entire study at Marine Geology. Goto has a related study in the same issue that can be accessed here.

Supplementary source: Our Amazing Planet.

Top image: NASA. Inset image via Tohoku University.

Since 2009, NASA has tracked the position of its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter with a laser. But in an effort to push interplanetary communications technology forward, the space agency recently used the same device to beam a message to the spacecraft, namely a digitized image of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. The successful test marked an important proof-of-concept that will drive the development of high data rate laser-communication.

To make it work, NASA had to transmit the data nearly 240,000 miles (386,243 km) in digital format, and it did so by using the Next Generation Satellite Laser Ranging (NGSLR) station at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. In turn, the spacecraft was able to receive the message by using its Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA).

NASA sent the image in the form of discrete laser pulses that were decompiled by the Orbiter. Each pulse represented a different pixel of the digitized image.

"This is the first time anyone has achieved one-way laser communication at planetary distances," said LOLA's David Smith through NASA's official statement. "In the near future, this type of simple laser communication might serve as a backup for the radio communication that satellites use." Smith says that, in the more distant future, it may allow communication at higher data rates than present radio links can provide.

Precise timing was key. The image was divided into an array of 152 pixels by 200 pixels, and each dot was converted into a shade of gray, represented by a number between zero and 4,095. The pulse had to be fired in one of 4,096 possible timing slots during a brief time window allotted for laser tracking. In the end, the transmission rate reached a maximum 300 bits per second.

To clean up the image, NASA used the tried-and-true Reed-Solomon error correction, which is routinely used in CDs and DVDs.

Image: NASA.

For years, archaeologists studying Viking remnants and artifacts in Britain had assumed that certain stone structures were bathhouses, or a kind of primitive sauna. But a husband-and-wife team has now thrown this thinking into question by suggesting that they weren't bathhouses at all — that they were brewhouses where the Vikings made their beer.

Archaeologists know that Vikings loved their ale; the Sagas contain a slew of references. And in the 10th century, Haakon Haroldson, the first Christian king of Norway, decreed that Yule be celebrated on Christmas day and that "every farmstead should brew two meals of malt into ale." In fact, brewing ale was so important that there were fines for non-compliance; failure to brew beer for three years in a row could result in the forfeiture of a farm.

It's also known that the Vikings used malt to make their ale, and that it was stored in huge vats close to the drinking hall.

But as archaeologists Merryn and Graham Dineley recently pointed out, archaeologists have conveniently ignored where the Vikings actually brewed it. Since huge ale vats are not easily moved, the ale must have been mashed and fermented close to the ale store.

That's where the supposed "bath houses" come in — and that's where, according to the Dineleys, the beer was brewed. And they'd be the team to know. Merryn is an archaeologist specializing in exploring ancient ale-making, and Graham is a craft brewer specializing in making ancient ales.

The Dineleys recently examined a stone-built installation at Cubbie Roo's Castle, on the island of Wyre, Orkney — a Viking stronghold of the 12th century AD. The Dineleys theorize that the structure would have made for an excellent mash oven, with the cauldron sitting above the fire. And in fact, they say it's the best example of a Viking brew house in Britain. They room is well equipped with substantial drains, it has a stone shelf for the storage vats, and a drain beneath.

Moreover, it's located right beside the drinking hall.

The Dineleys made their research known at the Experimental Archaeology Conference, and you can check out their poster here (pdf).

Image: Dineleys.

H/t Zythophile.

Humans, for the most part, count in chunks of 10 — that's the foundation of the decimal system. Despite its near-universal adoption, however, it's a completely arbitrary numbering system that emerged for one very simple reason: We have five fingers on each hand. But as many mathematicians like to point out, base-10 is not without its problems. The number 12, they argue, is where it's really at. Here's why we should have adopted a base-12 counting system — and how we could still make it work.

Indeed, it's regrettable that we failed to evolve an ideal set of fingers to help us come up with numbering system suitable for counting and calculating. Instead, with our 10 fingers, we are stuck with the clunky decimal system.

Taking a closer look at base-10, we can see how frustratingly limited it really is. Ten has a paltry two factors (a divisor that produces whole numbers), namely 5 and 2. Moreover, these numbers are not very useful in-and-of themselves; 5 is a prime number that cannot divide any further, and 2 is a frustratingly small integer to work with.

Defenders of base-10 highlight its ability to allow for the moving of fraction points after multiplication or division — but that's not a trait exclusive to base-10. It's not ten-ness that allows for this property. More accurately, it's a characteristic that belongs to all bases — a property of the place value notation we use for expressing numbers, along with a symbol for zero.

Interestingly, base-10 is not universal across human societies. The Mayans were known to use a base 20-system, and the Babylonians developed a system using sets of 60. Base-8 and base-16 (the hexadecimal system) have also been used, mostly for computational reasons (quarters and eighths are simplified).

But these alternative sets are still not ideal for day-to-day, human applications. Base-20 is not great for finger counting; many of us wear shoes when we're doing math, nor can we move our toes with any kind of dexterity. Base-8 is simply too small, and base-16 and base-60 are too unwieldy.

Luckily, there's a base that sits in between these — a numbering system that has a plethora of characteristics that simply make it the best choice for counting and calculating.

Introducing the Dozenal System

Also called the duodecimal system, the "dozenal" system was initially popularized in the 17th century when mathematicians began to recognize the limitations of base-10.

Later, during the 1930s, F. Emerson Andrews published a book, New Numbers: How Acceptance of a Duodecimal Base Would Simplify Mathematics, in which he cogently argued for the change. He noticed that, due to the myriad occurrences of 12 in many traditional units of weight and measures, many of the advantages claimed for the metric system could also be adopted by the dozenal system.

Indeed, examples of base-12 systems abound. A carpenter's ruler has 12 subdivisions, grocers deal in dozens and grosses (12 dozen equals a gross), pharmacists and jewelers use the 12 ounce pound, and minters divide shillings into 12 pence. Even our timing and dating system depends on it; there are 12 months in the year, and our day is measured in 2 sets of 12. Additionally, in geometry, a circle is replete with subsets and supersets of 12 — what's measured in degrees (a 360 degree circle consists of 30 sets of 12).

It's also obvious that someone in our history was thinking along these lines. It's the largest number with a single-morpheme name in English (i.e. the word "twelve"). After that, we hit thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and so on — derivatives of three, four and five. Clearly, it was natural to think in terms of dozens.

Three decades after Andrews's book, the brilliant mathematician A. C. Aitken made a similar case. Writing in The Listen in 1962, he noted:

The duodecimal tables are easy to master, easier than the decimal ones; and in elementary teaching they would be so much more interesting, since young children would find more fascinating things to do with twelve rods or blocks than with ten. Anyone having these tables at command will do these calculations more than one-and-a-half times as fast in the duodecimal scale as in the decimal. This is my experience; I am certain that even more so it would be the experience of others.

Since the time of Andrews and Aitken, the dozenal movement has garnered a number of enthusiastic supporters, including the advent of the Dozenal Society of America and the Dozenal Society of Great Britain.

The basic argument from these so-called dozenalists is that it makes mathematics easier to conceptualize and understand, especially for children and students. Here's why they're right.

It's All About the Factors

First and foremost, 12 is a highly composite number — the smallest number with exactly four divisors: 2, 3, 4, and 6 (six if you count 1 and 12). As noted, 10 has only two. Consequently, 12 is much more practical when using fractions — it's easier to divide units of weights and measures into 12 parts, namely halves, thirds, and quarters.

Moreover, with base-12, we can use these three most common fractions without having to employ fractional notations. The numbers 6, 4, and 3 are all whole numbers. On the other hand, with base-10, we have to deal with unwieldy decimals, ½ = 0.5, ¼ = 0.25, and worst of all, the highly problematic ⅓ = 0.333333333333333333333.

And similar to the base-16 hexadecimal system, the dozenal system is exceptionally friendly to computer science. The number 12 has two factors that are prime numbers, 2 and 3. This means that the reciprocals of all smooth numbers (a number which factors completely into small prime numbers), such as 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, have a terminating representation in duodecimal (we'll get to counting in duodecimal in just a bit). Twelve just happens to be the smallest number with this feature, thus making it an extremely efficient number for encryption purposes and for computing fractions — and this includes the decimal, vigesimal, binary, octal, and hexadecimal systems.

Interestingly, the dozenal system would also make it easier to tell time. Five minutes is a 12th of an hour, so instead of saying "five past one," we could say "one and a twelfth" hours. Ten past one would be 1;2, a quarter past one 1;3, and so on (the symbol ";" is used as the fractional point).

But this would require a new clock. For it to work, both the hour hand and the minute hand would point to the precise time. In the conventional decimal clock, the minute hand awkwardly points to a number that has to be multiplied by five.

Notation and Pronunciation

As you look at the graphic of the clock to your above left, you're probably wondering what those funny symbols and words are. That's because, for a base-12 to work, we need to add two new symbols for 11 and 12 (remember, these are representations of numbers, and are not alphabetic; the number 12 is derived from having one complete set of 10 (hence the 1 in the first column), and an additional number 2 in the second column to denote two additional increments).

Recognizing the advantages of a base-12 system, Andrews designed a new notation to account for two new numbers. Instead of using "A" and "B" for 10 and 11 (as per the hexadecimal system), Andrews suggested a script X (U+1D4B3) and E (U+2130), with 10 duodecimal representing 12 decimal. So the first 12 numbers would look like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, X, E, 10.

Others have suggested that 10 could be written as "T" and the number eleven "E." Mathematician Isaac Pitman wanted to use a rotated "2" for ten and a reversed "3" for eleven (as per the clock above). Other schemas use "*" for 10 and "#" for 11 (which is phone and computer keyboard friendly).

For fractions, the decimal 0.5 would be written in duodecimal as 0;6 (remember, a half of 10 is different than a half of 12).

If this is confusing, you can always use the dozenal/decimal calculator.

For numbers that go beyond 12, we would add a prefix to the value denoting the number of sets. So, for the numbers 13, 14, and 15, we'd write 11, 12, and 13. And for the numbers 22, 23, and 24, we'd write 1X, 1E, and 20.

In terms of pronunciation, Donald P. Goodman, president of the Dozenal Society of America, says that X should be called "ten", E called "elv" and 10 pronounced "unqua." So, when counting, we'd say, "...eight, nine, ten elv, unqua."

Interestingly, in the 1973 episode "Little Twelvetoes" of the Schoolhouse Rock! television series, an alien child uses a base-12 system and pronounces the last three numbers "dek," "el" and "doh." "Dek" was derived from the prefix "deca", while "el" was short for "eleven," and "doh" a shortening of "dozen." Many dozenalists have adopted this particular pronunciation system.

Now, to pronounce numbers greater than 12, like duodecimal 15, we would say doh-five, which is a compound of doh, which is twelve, and five. We can extend this for other numbers such as duodecimal 64, which would be pronounced as six-doh-four. If we were to reach and surpass the number EE, (el-doh-el), we need a new word for the digits in the third column over.

The word for 144 decimal, or 100 dozenal, is called "gros" (the ‘s' is silent) So, a three-digit dozenal number, such as 25X, would be pronounced as "two-gros-five-doh-dek." In decimal, this number is 358.

Counting Fingers

Critics of the dozenal system say that it would undermine the benefits of finger counting.

But as dozenalists are happy to point out, each finger consists of three parts. So, starting with the index finger, and using the thumb as a pointer, we can immediately denote the first three digits (working our way from bottom to the top of the finger). Then, the middle finger can denote 4, 5, 6, the middle finger, 7, 8, 9, and so on. Using this system, our two hands gives us a total of 24 numbers to work with. Some finger-counters work their way from left to right, designating the tips of their fingers 1, 2, 3, 4.

Even better, we can use our second hand to display the number of completed base 12's. Consequently, we can use our fingers to go up to 144 (12 x 12).

For example, if you take the thumb of your left hand and place it on the middle joint of your middle finger (which is the 5th base 12, equalling 60 decimal), and you do the same on your right hand (which signifies the 5th increment), we get the number 65 decimal.

Could We Ever Switch Over?

Unfortunately, converting to the dozenal system at this point would be exceptionally difficult, and over-the-top expensive. While the long-term benefits are obvious, it's probably not worth the short-term pain. But that said, living with a sub-optimal counting system from here to eternity seems sad.

That said, dozenalists like Donald Goodman say it's not completely impossible. He argues that converting the currency would be the first and most crucial step, followed by an organized education campaign on the matter in the schools (As an aside, and in regards to this last step, this is exactly how the metric system was popularized and taught in Canada; I vividly remember the day when, as a child, our teacher came in and said, "Kids, from here on in, it's the metric system — no exceptions").

Goodman is skeptical, however, that any one procedure could work everywhere, suggesting that it would have to be tailored to local circumstances.

"Most dozenalists believe that we should let dozenals speak for themselves," he told the Guardian. "As time goes on, and as more people learn about dozenals, more people will use them; after a while, people won't want to use decimals anymore." No official, top-down change is really needed, he argues, except for things like money and legal recognition for dozenal measurement systems.

So, what do you think? Has the time come for the dozenal system?

Special thanks to Calvin Dvorsky for helping me write this article!

Sources: Dozenal Society of Great Britain, Dozenal Society of America, The Guardian.

Images: Shutterstock/ArtisticPhoto, Guardian, gorpub.

A British team of archaeologists and surveyors are currently in Burma searching for dozens of Spitfire airplanes that were allegedly buried while still in their crates when World War II came to a close. For archaeologist David Cundall, it's a search that's 17 years in the making — and the product of his life's work. But it's also a potentially lucrative venture, as the increasingly rare artifact is now valued at $1.6 million each.

That the Supermarine Spitfire is so highly valued should come as little surprise. It was the killer-app, quite literally, during the Battle of Britain, and the best British fighter during the war — a plane that is now regarded with legendary status.

Designed by Reginald J. Mitchell, it featured a slender aerodynamic body and elliptical wings, which guaranteed perfect lift. It was also outfitted with a Rolls-Royce V12 engine.

And the pilots loved it. It was a joy to fly, mostly on account of its speed (369 mph/593 kph at 19,815 feet/6,039 meters) and high degree of maneuverability. Pilots of the Nazi Luftwaffe — particularly bomber crews — learned to fear it.

The Mark XIV, which appeared later in the war, and is the version that's currently being searched for by Cundall, was later outfitted with a 1,665 hp Merlin engine. It also holds the distinction of being the first British aircraft to shoot down the Me 262 — the world's first jet fighter.

By the end of the war, nearly 20,000 Spitfires had been produced. And like so many other military weapons and equipment, the abrupt end to the war created a tremendous surplus.

Indeed, soon after WW2, much of the material was written off at the time it was accepted; if too much of it got into the hands of traders (the Chinese excelled at this), it could depress the market for new goods. And in fact, the West did experience several challenging years until their manufacturing capacity was reconverted to the manufacture of peacetime goods.

To cope with this, many Allied countries had to get rid of their surplus equipment. It got so bad that, in some cases, the excess equipment was disposed of by burning, including aircraft. In one account, an entire pier was constructed entirely of new jeeps still in their packing cases.

But according to the recollections of some U.S. veterans, an entire squadron's worth of Mark XIV Spitfires were buried in various parts of Burma — about 140 fighters to be exact. And according to one source, there may be as many as 36 buried close to the runway at the Rangoon airport.

Unfortunately, the initial search has turned up short. As The Guardian reported earlier today, the team of 21 archaeologists had spent the last few days digging up various holes around the Rangoon airport looking for the giant crates. But all they found were bundles of electric cables and water pipes.

According to the archaeologists, they haven't stopped searching, and "cannot stop" now. They consider it a setback and a delay in their work.

We'll continue to update this story as it unfolds.

Images: Chowells, AP.

German magazine Der Spiegel has just published an interview with geneticist George Church in which he talks about his work as a biologist and his idea of making humans resistant to all viruses. But he also addresses a topic we've discussed before: The idea of cloning a Neandertal.

Church, the author of Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves, is a pioneer in synthetic biology and was a key player in the mapping of the human genome. He has also helped to set up around two dozen biotech firms.

When speaking with Der Spiegel, he mentioned that we'll soon have the capacity to clone a Neandertal. "We can clone all kinds of mammals," he said, "so it's very likely that we could clone a human. Why shouldn't we be able to do so?"

Here's a snippet of the interview:

SPIEGEL: Would cloning a Neanderthal be a desirable thing to do?

Church: Well, that's another thing. I tend to decide on what is desirable based on societal consensus. My role is to determine what's technologically feasible. All I can do is reduce the risk and increase the benefits.

SPIEGEL: So let's talk about possible benefits of a Neanderthal in this world.

Church: Well, Neanderthals might think differently than we do. We know that they had a larger cranial size. They could even be more intelligent than us. When the time comes to deal with an epidemic or getting off the planet or whatever, it's conceivable that their way of thinking could be beneficial.

SPIEGEL: How do we have to imagine this: You raise Neanderthals in a lab, ask them to solve problems and thereby study how they think?

Church: No, you would certainly have to create a cohort, so they would have some sense of identity. They could maybe even create a new neo-Neanderthal culture and become a political force.

SPIEGEL: Wouldn't it be ethically problematic to create a Neanderthal just for the sake of scientific curiosity?

Church: Well, curiosity may be part of it, but it's not the most important driving force. The main goal is to increase diversity. The one thing that is bad for society is low diversity. This is true for culture or evolution, for species and also for whole societies. If you become a monoculture, you are at great risk of perishing. Therefore the recreation of Neanderthals would be mainly a question of societal risk avoidance.

SPIEGEL: Setting aside all ethical doubts, do you believe it is technically possible to reproduce the Neanderthal?

Church: The first thing you have to do is to sequence the Neanderthal genome, and that has actually been done. The next step would be to chop a human genome up into, say, 10,000 chunks and then synthesize these. Finally, you would introduce these chunks into a human stem cell. If we do that often enough, then we would generate a stem cell line that would get closer and closer to the corresponding sequence of the Neanderthal. We developed the semi-automated procedure required to do that in my lab. Finally, we assemble all the chunks in a human stem cell, which would enable you to finally create a Neanderthal clone.

SPIEGEL: And the surrogates would be human, right? In your book you write that an "extremely adventurous female human" could serve as the surrogate mother.

Church: Yes. However, the prerequisite would, of course, be that human cloning is acceptable to society.

SPIEGEL: Could you also stop the procedure halfway through and build a 50-percent Neanderthal using this technology.

Church: You could and you might. It could even be that you want just a few mutations from the Neanderthal genome. Suppose you were too realize: Wow, these five mutations might change the neuronal pathways, the skull size, a few key things. They could give us what we want in terms of neural diversity. I doubt that we are going to particularly care about their facial morphology, though (laughs).

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Images: Top; inset: Rick Friedman/Der Spiegel.