this year.

It is interesting to consider that many of our units of measure were created through completely arbitrary methods. A metre was roughly the distance between two scratches on a bar. CNN is reporting that 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. It currently weighs 50 micrograms less than the average weight of a dozen copies. Apparently this change in weight can have a drastic affect on high order calculations. Scientists are working to redefine the kilogram into something that is more concrete. One of the leading alternatives for a 21st-century kilogram is a sphere made out of a Silicon-28 isotope crystal, which would involve a single type of atom and have a fixed mass. [source: CNN Technology]