See What’s Buried in the Swiss Bunkers Turned Into Secretive Data Centers

Entrance to Mount10, a the data centre known as “The Swiss Fort Knox”, Saanen-Gstaad, Switzerland, 2010. Built in 1946 by the Swiss army, this former military bunker was converted into a data centre in 1993. It is linked by a glass fibre connection to another bunker 10km away, Swiss Fort Knox II, which is still Swiss army property. Clients are assured the army has no control over their activities. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Entrance to Mount10, a the data centre known as “The Swiss Fort Knox”, Saanen-Gstaad, Switzerland, 2010. Built in 1946 by the Swiss army, this former military bunker was converted into a data centre in 1993. It is linked by a glass fibre connection to another bunker 10km away, Swiss Fort Knox II, which is still Swiss army property. Clients are assured the army has no control over their activities.

Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Main corridor of Mount10, a data center known as “The Swiss Fort Knox”, Saanen-Gstaad, Switzerland, 2010. With more than 26,000 former bunkers, Switzerland is a coveted location for information storage and backup. The fact that the Patriot Act applies only to data stored on American territory or in American companies abroad has attracted many clients to European facilities. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Main corridor of Mount10, a data center known as “The Swiss Fort Knox”, Saanen-Gstaad, Switzerland, 2010. With more than 26,000 former bunkers, Switzerland is a coveted location for information storage and backup. The fact that the Patriot Act applies only to data stored on American territory or in American companies abroad has attracted many clients to European facilities.

Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Entrance to Bahnhof.se, “Pionen”, a data center in Stockholm, Sweden, 2011. Located 30 meters below ground, hewn into the rock below the Sofia church, this former Cold War military bunker was refurbished in 2008 by the Bahnhof company. It's built to withstand a nuclear explosion and its backup generators are made from German submarine engines. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Entrance to Bahnhof.se, “Pionen”, a data center in Stockholm, Sweden, 2011. Located 30 meters below ground, hewn into the rock below the Sofia church, this former Cold War military bunker was refurbished in 2008 by the Bahnhof company. It's built to withstand a nuclear explosion and its backup generators are made from German submarine engines.

Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Basement of SafeHost, a data centre in Plan-Les-Ouates, Geneva, Switzerland, 2012. Created in 2000 in a suburb of Geneva, SafeHost is an entirely private data centre. Clients include financial institutions and international organizations as well as private businesses. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Basement of SafeHost, a data centre in Plan-Les-Ouates, Geneva, Switzerland, 2012. Created in 2000 in a suburb of Geneva, SafeHost is an entirely private data centre. Clients include financial institutions and international organizations as well as private businesses.

Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Servers, Bahnhof.se, “Pionen”, Stockholm, Sweden, 2011. Bahnhof holds two Wikileaks servers. The Swedish company won't concern itself with the contents, however. As long as Wikileaks continues to pay the rent, Bahnhof sees no problem in continuing to provide the space. Other data centers such as Swiss Fort Knox have refused to host Wikileaks. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Servers, Bahnhof.se, “Pionen”, Stockholm, Sweden, 2011. Bahnhof holds two Wikileaks servers. The Swedish company won't concern itself with the contents, however. As long as Wikileaks continues to pay the rent, Bahnhof sees no problem in continuing to provide the space. Other data centers such as Swiss Fort Knox have refused to host Wikileaks.

Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Main room hewn into the rock, Bahnhof.se, “Pionen”, Stockholm, Sweden, 2011. This high security computer centre in based in a nuclear shelter used by the Swedish civil defense during the Cold War. In the main room, under tight security, the server cabinets are disaggregated and maintained by a team of computer engineers. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Main room hewn into the rock, Bahnhof.se, “Pionen”, Stockholm, Sweden, 2011. This high security computer centre in based in a nuclear shelter used by the Swedish civil defense during the Cold War. In the main room, under tight security, the server cabinets are disaggregated and maintained by a team of computer engineers.

Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Business continuity room, SafeHost, Plan-Les-Ouates, Geneva, Switzerland, 2012. This room with 300 workplaces in the SafeHost building can be rapidly activated at the request of a client following critical data loss. Backup and recovery of client data can be managed here. Cafeteria, conference room, printers and telephones are all available. Within hours, normal business activity can be resumed. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Business continuity room, SafeHost, Plan-Les-Ouates, Geneva, Switzerland, 2012. This room with 300 workplaces in the SafeHost building can be rapidly activated at the request of a client following critical data loss. Backup and recovery of client data can be managed here. Cafeteria, conference room, printers and telephones are all available. Within hours, normal business activity can be resumed.

Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Server cabinets, Bahnhof.se, “Pionen”, Stockholm, Sweden, 2011. When it came to the design of this facility, Director Jon Karlung was inspired by sci-fi films Logan’s Run, Silent Running, Star Wars, and the Bond films. “I was thinking of the Blofeld set-up and even considered adopting a white cat. But that might have been going a little too far,” jokes Karlung. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Server cabinets, Bahnhof.se, “Pionen”, Stockholm, Sweden, 2011. When it came to the design of this facility, Director Jon Karlung was inspired by sci-fi films Logan’s Run, Silent Running, Star Wars, and the Bond films. “I was thinking of the Blofeld set-up and even considered adopting a white cat. But that might have been going a little too far,” jokes Karlung.

Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Server cabinet, SafeHost, Plan-Les-Ouates, Geneva, Switzerland, 2012. According to a report by Brainserve and Securitas of 5 May 2011, there are three causes of data loss: human error (14 percent), system failure (24 percent) and malicious attacks (62 percent). Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Server cabinet, SafeHost, Plan-Les-Ouates, Geneva, Switzerland, 2012. According to a report by Brainserve and Securitas of 5 May 2011, there are three causes of data loss: human error (14 percent), system failure (24 percent) and malicious attacks (62 percent).

Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Business continuity room, SafeHost, Plan-Les-Ouates, Geneva, Switzerland, 2012. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Business continuity room, SafeHost, Plan-Les-Ouates, Geneva, Switzerland, 2012.

Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Data repository at Sispace, Dülliken, Switzerland, 2010. Sensitive data is kept in yellow boxes with a barcode, stacked in rows and layers. The building is guarded 24/7. Storage is in acid-free cardboard boxes, with fire protection and guaranteed maximum security for the reassurance of the client. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Data repository at Sispace, Dülliken, Switzerland, 2010. Sensitive data is kept in yellow boxes with a barcode, stacked in rows and layers. The building is guarded 24/7. Storage is in acid-free cardboard boxes, with fire protection and guaranteed maximum security for the reassurance of the client.

Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

An interior wall of Mount10, in Saanen-Gstaad, Switzerland, 2010. Originally, a bunker built by the Swiss army in 1946. The basic infrastructure is original. Only the contents have changed.

An interior wall of Mount10, in Saanen-Gstaad, Switzerland, 2010. Originally, a bunker built by the Swiss army in 1946. The basic infrastructure is original. Only the contents have changed.

Central room of the data centre of Mount10, Saanen-Gstaad, Switzerland, 2010. The server space here is rented on a yearly basis. The room is under permanent camera surveillance, constant guard, and is protected by an anti-ABC (atomic, bacteriological, chemical) system. There are biometric controls for entry to the room. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Central room of the data centre of Mount10, Saanen-Gstaad, Switzerland, 2010. The server space here is rented on a yearly basis. The room is under permanent camera surveillance, constant guard, and is protected by an anti-ABC (atomic, bacteriological, chemical) system. There are biometric controls for entry to the room.

Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

A guard waiting for the armoured door to open in one of Mount10’s many corridors. Different uniforms are used and adapted or omitted for client visits to accommodate the sensibilities of the client and the situation in the client’s country (war, dictatorship, coup d'etat). Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

A guard waiting for the armoured door to open in one of Mount10’s many corridors. Different uniforms are used and adapted or omitted for client visits to accommodate the sensibilities of the client and the situation in the client’s country (war, dictatorship, coup d'etat).

Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

The European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), Hinxton, Cambridge, UK, 2013. This seemingly empty test-tube contains Shakespeare’s sonnets, a Martin Luther King speech, a jpeg photo and a copy of the 1953 article by Crick and Watson describing the structure of DNA. This information is encoded and stored in synthesized DNA form. Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

The European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), Hinxton, Cambridge, UK, 2013. This seemingly empty test-tube contains Shakespeare’s sonnets, a Martin Luther King speech, a jpeg photo and a copy of the 1953 article by Crick and Watson describing the structure of DNA. This information is encoded and stored in synthesized DNA form.

Yann Mingard. Courtesy East Wing Gallery

Not all data centers are the same. There are cloud storage mega-centers all over Silicon Valley that take care of our smartphone camera rolls and contacts lists. There are the NSA’s data centers, which do similar things but the permissions are (at least in theory) different.

In his series Deposit, Swiss photographer Yann Mingard reveals another type of data storage facility: the privately owned bunker space within which individuals, companies and even nation-states secure their most precious code, papers, and in some cases, genetic material. These data centers aren’t intended to intercept or analyze data; they’re merely meant to protect the contents from virus, loss and—most of all—from snooping.

Mingard’s exquisite darkened images of data centers from Switzerland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom form the fourth and final chapter of Deposit, a sprawling four-year project which meditates on the anxieties of contemporary life. Deposit delves deep into the real and perceived threats to human survival, and the emerging technologies that promise security.

The photos reveal another type of data storage facility: the privately owned bunker space within which individuals, companies and even nation-states secure their most precious code, papers, and in some cases, genetic material.

Though finely crafted views of these subterranean sites, Mingard’s images are not homage to them. He feels the hyper-secure storage industry is indicative of a widespread desperation to protect what we have as we careen toward uncertain times.

“We’re in a grey zone between the past and the future,” he says. “We have nostalgia for the past, but our efforts looking toward the future and to climate change are ones of anxiety. Between the present and the future are the politics and economics of crisis.”

Mingard is hip to the changes, as his hometown of Neuchâtel is base to one of Switzerland’s largest data-storage companies. The country as a whole leads the secure storage industry. This makes sense for a culture with a reputation for blind neutrality and discretion when dealing with the assets and bank accounts of the world’s minted.

Swiss centers hold the possessions of Russia, Kazahkstan, Qatar and other Arab nations, says Mingard. “But it’s all denied, of course.” Recently, an unnamed Asian government negotiated to store all its digital assets in Mount10, at the data center known as “The Swiss Fort Knox” in Saanen-Gstaad.

As well as digital archives, clients store physical archives. Foreign clients, including Americans, have flooded in to purchase protection. Airstrips are located close by, and glossy brochures promote former military bunkers’ security features.

“It’s pure marketing,” Mingard says. “The employees perform [for clients' visits] and the look must be exciting, like James Bond. The staff wear different uniforms depending on the proclivities of the client—civilian clothes if the client is a controversial political figure.”

The data centers that were set up to pander to the wealthiest individuals were the most difficult to access, says Mingard.

“No one’s working down there. There are no lights on! It’s a cave into which you put seeds each month, and then close the door.”

The darkened look of his images and the carefully negotiated access in Deposit are related. Mingard knew access wouldn’t be easy, and so he had to know exactly what type of shot he wanted before entering. As he had shot specimens against dark backgrounds previously for other parts of the series, he decided to continue the palette with his interior studies of the data centers. It was a practical solution.

“These are bunkers,” he says. “No one’s working down there. There are no lights on! It’s a cave into which you put seeds each month, and then close the door. A specimen is kept in a plastic bag, in an aluminum bag, in a plastic box, in a concrete bunker, under the ground, in minus 30 degrees!”

The shroud of darkness also is a portent to a future of withered biodiversity. All the plants and animal specimens in storage were shot ex-situ, extricated from nature.

“We’re losing our biodiversity. We’ve pretty much conceded that we cannot conserve nature in situ,” says Mingard who is increasingly worried by the involvement of private companies in the preservation of humanity’s shared biological assets.

“If humans collect their own sperm it is their own business, but the collection of crop seeds is in the public interest,” he says before pointing out that of the 1,500 seed vaults around the world many are administered or funded in part by NGO’s such as Rockefeller and Gates Foundations, or corporations like Syngenta, Pioneer, and Monsanto.

Before becoming a photographer, Mingard was a gardener trained at the Ecole de Marcelin. Through his images, he wants us to think about how we deal with nature and its loss, and he wants us to think about our definitions of the natural. The final image in the book (and the final image in this gallery) is a vial containing Shakespeare’s sonnets, a Martin Luther King speech, a jpeg photo and a copy of the 1953 article by Crick and Watson describing the structure of DNA. The information is encoded and stored in synthesized DNA form.

The natural is being reduced to numbers and letters, and so it is natural (pun intended) that Deposit ends inside the data centers.

“Information and code is the currency of the future. It is what drives the past to the present to the future,” says Mingard. “Maybe you and I will be reduced to code and stored? Reduced to virtually nothing. This vial seems empty. You see nothing.”

Data centers are “the end point of everything” says Mingard, but he isn’t trying to be fatalistic about the indexation, archiving and codifying he has witnessed.

“I’m not cynical; I am just looking at the developments,” he says, “I was surprised to see geneticists, scientists, politicians and the public so fearful. People are pessimistic. “

Protein controlling gut's protective force field identified: Immune-system receptor encourages growth of bacterial shield during illness

A sugary force field is activated in the gut when our defenses are down to encourage the growth of helpful bacteria and fight over-colonisation by harmful micro-organisms, scientists have discovered.

Scientists have found that mice who have had the gene IL-22RA1 gene removed are more susceptible to infection because they cannot produce a receptor protein that makes the cells produce sugars. Normally this process coats the surface of the intestine with a sugary substance that encourages the growth of bacteria and the restoration of balance. With the gene removed, the body was unable to produce this force field.

This finding will help researchers to identify protective bacterial groups that proliferate when the receptor is activated. These bacterial groups could be used therapeutically.

Scientists have identified a protein in the human intestine that helps to protect against attack from opportunistic bacteria that strike when our defenses are down. The protein receptor is activated during illness, producing a force field on the gut's surface made of a sugary substance that encourages the growth of protective bacteria.

Scientists deleted the IL-22RA1 gene that produces the receptor protein from the mouse genome. In the absence of this gene, which is associated with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in humans, the mice were found to be more susceptible to over-colonization by harmful Enterococcus faecalis bacteria.

"The gut prevents over-colonization by fuelling the growth of bacteria that will restore balance," explains Tu Anh Pham, first author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "We confirmed this by treating the mouse models with the intestinal coating produced in wild-type mice and found that many of them regained their former equilibrium."

Investigating the mechanism further in the lab, researchers found that the protective force field works by inducing fucosylation, where a sugar-like substance is produced that coats the surface of the epithelial cells of the intestine, creating a healthy microbiota in which a whole host of protective bacteria will thrive.

Using organoids, an emerging research tool that enables scientists to grow small intestinal tissue clusters using cells from the original tissue and stem cells, researchers were able to take a closer look at epithelial cells in which IL-22RA1 receptors were working correctly.

Researchers sequenced the organoid RNA, the molecules that regulate gene expression in these cells, to identify the series of pathways affected by the activation of the IL-22RA1 receptor. Many of the pathways identified have previously been linked to autoimmune diseases such as IBD. In addition, Fut2, the gene involved in the related process of fucolysation, has known links to Crohn's disease.

"In this research we've used the Sanger Institute's expertise in mouse genetics to look at the microbiota in the context of a whole system and in extraordinary detail on a cellular level using organoids," says Dr Trevor Lawley, senior author from the Sanger Institute. "Both perspectives are indispensable in our work to understand the complex interplay between the host and the unique mixture of bacteria each one of us harbours."

Now that researchers have a better understanding of the host's genetics, they can begin to identify the protective bacterial groups that proliferate when the IL-22RA1 receptor is activated. It is hoped that these bacterial species could be used therapeutically.

"We might, in the future, be able to harness what we know about this receptor and the bacteria it promotes to protect vulnerable patients," says Professor Arthur Kaser, Consultant Physician in the Department of Gastroenterology at Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge. "If we can replenish their microbiota and help them produce the correct environment in their gut, we will be able to give them the strength they need to battle infection."

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

The Twitter Creationist Time Machine! [Pharyngula]

It’s reassuring to know that it’s not just other atheists who hate me, but that I also still piss off the creationists. In addition to the mob of atheist dudebros howling at my door, there has been a recent resurgence of creationist loonietarianism in my email. It seems to have been triggered by a Seventh Day Adventist pastor, Doug Batchelor.

SDAs are really among the battiest of the batty; their young earth creationism isn’t simply a product of ignorance and gullibility, but is literally enforced doctrine. They had a nineteenth century prophetess, Ellen White, who insisted that she had seen in a vision that God created the whole world in precisely six days, six thousand years ago, and therefore you must believe it (SDA PDF). Would Ellen White lie, or be deluded?

By the way, if you want to drive a non-SDA creationist nuts, just point out to them that their literal creationism is derived in a clear and unambiguous historical lineage from Ellen White, by way of George McCready Price, into the 1961 book The Genesis Flood, and that their creationist views are therefore simply the doctrine of a heretical Christian sect that they probably despise.

Anyway, Batchelor sent me a link that would refute evolution.

Evolution fails the science test.

It was weird. First thing: it’s written by an SDA minister, Joe Crews, who died in 1994…so you can guess it’s already a lot out of date. And then, reading it, it consists largely of quote mining a lot of scientists. These scientists:

Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)

George Wald (1906-1997)

Charles Eugene Guye (1866-1942)

Julian Huxley (1887-1975)

Ernst Mayr (1904-2005)

George Gaylord Simpson (1902-1984)

Daniel Axelrod (1910-1998)

Austin Clark (1880-1954)

Marshall Kay (1904-1975)

Edwin Colbert (1905-2001)

Notice the dates? They’re all as dead as the author. Most of the cited quotes are from the 1950s or earlier, so they predate modern molecular biology and genetics. So this is already like kicking a corpse — it’s a collection of creationist misconceptions, and they’re also really old. This corpse isn’t just dead, it’s decayed. I’m not even pushing around bones, but just sweeping up dust in a coffin.

I’m just going to zip through his major points really fast, because the 1950s were a rather ugly era, and I don’t want to hang around there. Seriously, I was born then, and I spent the whole last bit of the decade squalling and crying and pooping my diaper, so get me outta there.

Louis Pasteur disproved spontaneous generation, therefore life could not have ever come from non-life. Nope. If you’re going to play logic games and insist that every statement has to be universally and eternally true, then realize this: we all know that it can’t have always been true. There had to be a time when non-life transformed into life. Creationists think it was a magic, instantaneous zot from God; rational people think it was a gradual process of chemistry and ancient geochemical conditions spanning a hundred million years or more, and point to the evidence of Earth’s changing chemistry about 4 billion years ago. To people who think the earth is only 6,000 years old. It’s kind of futile, isn’t it?

Life is too improbable to have ever evolved. Creationists don’t understand math. Ian Musgrave explained this well several years ago.

Mutations can’t have a positive effect. Oh, yeah? Here’s a list. I also have to point out some of the unintentionally funny things creationists say:

Every species has its own particular number of chromosomes that contain the genes. Within every human being are 46 chromosomes containing an estimated 100,000 genes, each one of which is able to affect in some way the size, color, texture, or quality of the individual.

The number is way off — it’s about 20,000 genes — but I was most amused by the reduction of what genes do to that peculiar list. So it’s kind of like buying a carpet, I guess.

No transitional fossils. Oh, please. Nowadays all you have to do is go to wikipedia.

The pre-Cambrian strata are completely devoid of fossils. Wasn’t I writing about pre-Cambrian fossils just yesterday? What about the Ediacaran fauna?

Uniformitarianism doesn’t apply, because oil isn’t being formed right now. All oil deposits were created in the Flood. But peat, coal, and oil are forming today — it’s just slow, and requires millions of years to accumulate appreciable amounts.

Crews doesn’t understand natural selection. This part is just incoherent.

“Natural selection” is a coined phrase of the evolutionist to describe the survival of the fittest. Simply stated, it is the natural process that enables the strongest of each generation to survive and the weaker, more poorly adjusted ones to die out. The assumption of evolution is that since only the strongest survive to father the next generation, the species will gradually improve, even advancing into other more highly developed states on the evolutionary scale.

A few points: “survival of the fittest” is the pop sci term coined by Herbert Spencer; Darwin didn’t care much for it, neither do I. But basically Crews has the etymology completely backwards. Evolution proposes not that species gradually “improve”, or climb some evolutionary scale, but that they become better adapted to local conditions, driving diversification.

What can I say? This was a most pathetic sally. Creationists, try to do better. At least challenge me with quotes that aren’t 50 to 100 years old, OK?

Futurama’s Resident Physics Nerd on Math Jokes and Richard Nixon

David X. Cohen at Comic-Con in 2011. Gage Skidmore | CC BY­ND

David X. Cohen is one of the few TV writers who can thank a physics degree for his big break. As the resident science nerd on The Simpsons back in the late 1990s, he was tapped by series creator Matt Groening to help develop a new sci-fi show for Fox. The series they dreamed up, Futurama , was bursting at the seams with wild sci-fi antics and macabre humor. The network was perplexed.

“I think they thought it was going to be a little bit more of a family flying around on a sofa in space,” Cohen says in Episode 118 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast.

Fox reluctantly gave Cohen and Groening the go-ahead for their new show, and though Futurama quickly earned a loyal following among sci-fi fans, it never achieved the broad mainstream popularity of The Simpsons. But one thing the shows do share is their large number of sly math jokes, many of which are catalogued in the new book The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets by Simon Singh. The book includes four chapters on Cohen and Futurama.

“We’ve entered a surreal chapter in the history of these shows were I’m doing interviews about math suddenly that I haven’t thought about in 20 years,” says Cohen. “So don’t quiz me.”

He’s also busy contemplating his next project, following the fourth and possibly final cancellation of Futurama last year. Fans can look forward to a Simpsons crossover in November, but beyond that the show’s future is uncertain. Cohen believes that DVD sales will likely determine whether Futurama returns again, but also feels that fans have already done their part to keep the showing going for as long as they have.

“Our fans have helped us more than the fans of almost any other show,” he says. “Our fans don’t owe us anything. In fact, I feel like I owe all of our fans a free DVD set.”

For more on David X. Cohen and Futurama, listen to our complete interview in Episode 118 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast (above) and check out a few highlights from the discussion below.

David X. Cohen on the influence of Stanislaw Lem:

“My mom was a voracious science fiction reader, so actually that’s where I got my love of science fiction, and some of the books I found lying around when I was a kid were the Stanislaw Lem books like The Star Diaries, The Tales of Pirx the Pilot, and [Mortal Engines]. These are these really strange, surreal, and funny sci-fi short stories that I think did have a big influence on me, especially as far as the idea that robots could be characters. So Bender being kind of the most human character on Futurama I think does owe a little bit to Stanislaw Lem. I particularly remember this one story that had a huge influence on me … about a planet that was inhabited entirely by robots, and these humans crash-land on it, and the murderous robots are out to kill the humans, and the humans have to pretend to be robots to survive, and of course it turns out ultimately—spoiler alert here—it turns out that everybody on the planet are humans who crash-landed and are disguising themselves as robots, and are hiding out in desperation from each other. So that directly influenced Futurama.”

David X. Cohen on Richard Nixon:

“For those listening who don’t watch Futurama, Richard Nixon’s head—which is preserved in a jar of liquid, as many famous people’s heads are in the future—Richard Nixon’s head is president of the world in the future. … I remember Matt Groening saying, ‘If you had told me in the ’70s that I was going to be able to make fun of Richard Nixon 30 years later, I would have been so happy.’ It was just his longtime dream to continue kicking around Richard Nixon. … And early on in the show the network got a letter from the Richard Nixon Library saying they weren’t pleased with his portrayal and would we consider not doing it. … We didn’t really stop, however, because we liked it, but the strange thing is that … a few years later we got another letter from the Nixon Library saying can we provide some materials because they’re going to do an exhibit about Nixon in popular culture and they’d like to include Futurama, so they came around.”

David X. Cohen on the Futurama Theorem:

“The highlight of Futurama math for sure is this thing that’s now known as the ‘Futurama Theorem.’ I’m descending into hyper-nerdspace now. The writer of this episode was Ken Keeler, who I mentioned earlier, who has a PhD in applied math. … And he was writing this episode where the idea was the characters are all going to switch brains, with this brain-switching machine—sort of a standard sci-fi and cartoon idea. … And we came up with this complication: If the machine switches two people’s brains, it cannot switch those same two people’s brains back. … And we were just trying to make the plot more complicated, but we realized that we had accidentally created this math problem. … Ken comes in the next morning with a stack of paper and he said, ‘I’ve got the proof,’ and he had proven that no matter how mixed up people’s brains are, if you bring in two new people who have not had their brains switched, then everybody can always get their original brain back, including those two new people. So I was very excited about this, because you rarely get to see science, let alone math, be the hero of a comedy episode of TV.”

David X. Cohen on “The Un-Freeze of a Lifetime”:

“These Anthology of Interest episodes are ones where we do three mini-stories rather than one big story. This is sort of the format of the Simpsons Halloween episodes. So on Futurama we have these Anthology of Interests where we say, ‘What if blank?’ and it’s some alternate version of the future that we don’t normally show. We did one, which I wrote, where Fry asks, ‘What if I had never come to the future?’ And we see that because he was supposed to go into the future and the future changed, there’s an instability in the spacetime continuum, and the universe is going to collapse, and we then show Al Gore leading this team of super-nerds that must save the universe. The team consisted of him, Gary Gygax (the creator of Dungeons & Dragons ), Nichelle Nichols from the original Star Trek , Deep Blue the chess-playing computer, and … did I forget anyone? Stephen Hawking, of course. Stephen Hawking, who also appeared three times on Futurama. So it was a nerd’s delight to work on this episode.”