Various measures: obscure to unknown

Some examples, from the site:

Attoparsec
Parsecs are used in astronomy to measure enormous interstellar distances. A parsec is approximately 3.26 light-years or about 3.085×10¹⁶ m. Combining it with the "atto-" prefix yields attoparsec, a conveniently human-scaled unit of about 3.085 centimeters (about 1-7/32 inches) that has no obvious practical use but does have a proper SI symbol, apc. Interestingly, 1 attoparsec/microfortnight is nearly 1 inch/second (the actual figure is about 1.0043 inches per second, or approximately 2.55 cm/s).

Siriometer
The siriometer is a rarely used astronomical measure equal to one million astronomical units, i.e., one million times the average distance between the Sun and Earth. This distance is equal to about 15.8 light-years, about twice the distance from Earth to the star Sirius.

Light-nanosecond
The light-nanosecond was popularized as a unit of distance by Grace Hopper as the distance which a photon could travel in one billionth of a second (roughly 30 cm or one foot): "The speed of light is one foot per nanosecond."

Computer agents: Testing theories of social interaction

The complex behaviour of primates can be understood using artificially-intelligent computer 'agents' that mimic their actions, shows new research published in a special edition of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B and presented at the BA Festival of Science in York.

Scientists using agents programmed with simple instructions to work out why some primate groups are 'despotic' whilst others are 'egalitarian' - overturning previous theories developed by primatologists.

They have also found support for an existing theory of how dominant macaques make it to the safer positions at the middle of their troop without seeming to be pre-occupied with getting there.

Using agents programmed with two rules -- stay in a group for safety and pester subordinates until they move away -- scientists found that their more dominant agents would make their way to the centre of the group.

This is one of the few times I've seen agents being used to test theories. Oftentimes, agents are criticized for not being predictive. That is, you can run agent models, see interesting and thought-provoking patterns, but then ask: How does that help me to set a course of action?

While that question is unanswered, for now, the idea of mimicking social behavior and comparing the agent model to actual creatures, is quite fascinating and a marvelous application of this science.

Quote of the Year

My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.

Freeman Dyson, Physicist