International Kilogram Standard Found on South Beach

Fad Diets. They're great if you want to lose a few pounds, er, kilos. But sometimes you want your weight to be the same, day in and day out. Especially if you are the international Kilogram Standard. The 118-year-old cylinder - the international prototype for the metric mass, is kept tightly under lock and key outside Paris. And it 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.

We recommend that Davis send the kilogram standard to a U.S. high school cafeteria. We'll reverse that trend in a hurry.