THE WORLD'S FASTEST HUMAN CALCULATOR

The human calculator: 393 trillion answers - and he picks the right one in 70 seconds

When the answer is 2,407,899,893,032,210 you know the question is tough.

Not so tough, however, that Alexis Lemaire could not work it out in his head.

His challenge yesterday was to come up with the 13th root of a computer-generated 200-digit number.

And, with 393 trillion possible answers to choose from, the PhD student made it almost look easy.

A mere 70.2 seconds later, he cracked it and officially became the world's fastest human calculator.

A slight frown and a stare of deep concentration had been the only sign the 27-year-old "mathlete" was doing anything more than running through the eight times table.

Appropriately, the Frenchman broke his previous world record of 72.4 seconds at the Science Museum in London, where he had a backdrop of Charles Babbage's 1840s Difference Engine No2, the first successful mechanical calculator.

For those in the know, 13th roots are a yardstick in mental arithmetic for mathletes determined to show ever greater feats of brainpower.

A 13th root is - if your maths is no longer at Mr Lemaire's level - a number that multiplied by itself 13 times matches the initial figure.

Lemaire used a computer to generate a massive 200-digit number before working out its 13th root

Mr Lemaire, from Reims, began demonstrating his mental prowess by finding the 13th root of a random 100 digit number.

But this soon became too easy. The first time he tried a 200-digit challenge, it took him 40 minutes.

Since then, he has put himself through a mental training regime that has seen him repeatedly cut his time.

Cracking the answer is, apparently not all about maths, it also owes a lot to memory. Mr Lemaire, who is single, has memorised thousands of combinations of 13th root numbers.

"It's a bit like multiplication tables but with huge digits," he said. "It's a combination of techniques, partly memory and partly maths."

Asked to explain further, he would only say: "I won't give you my secret."

He did, however, agree to try the Daily Mail's 30-Second Challenge, and finished the advanced task in eight seconds.

It was a more than respectable performance - but, for a champion "13th rooter", it didn't seem that impressive.

Perhaps he was still tired after his world record.

Record-busting scorpion was bigger than man

Paris: This was a bug you couldn’t swat and definitely couldn’t step on. British and German researchers reported Wednesday that they had discovered the giant fossilised claw of an ancient sea scorpion that, hundreds of millions of years ago, would have been over 8 feet long - much taller than the average man, and almost as long as a car.

The find, in a quarry near the German town of Pruem, is the biggest specimen of arthropod ever found, they said in a study published by Biology Letters, a journal of Britain’s Royal Society.

“This is an amazing discovery,” said Simon Braddy, from the University of Bristol in England.

“We have known for some time that the fossil record yields monster millipedes, super-sized scorpions, colossal cockroaches and jumbo dragonflies, but we never realised until now just how big some of these ancient creepy-crawlies were”

The 18.4-inch claw was wielded by a species of sea scorpion called the Jaekelopterus rhenaniae, which lived between 460 and 255 million years ago.

Using the claw as a benchmark, the scientists believe its owner was between 7.57 and 8.41 feet long.

Chelicerae - wand-like appendages used to grasp food and bring it to the beast’s mandibles - would have added another 1.6 feet.

“This exceeds the previously-recorded maximum body length of any arthropod by almost half a metre, the chelicerae not included,” their study says.

Despite their name, sea scorpions, known as eurypterids, were not true scorpions. Equipped with long, flat, jointed carapaces, they stalked warm shallow sea waters from around 500 million to 250 million years ago, eventually moving into fresh water.

Biologists delving into Earth’s distant past are divided as to how some arthropods were able to develop into such monstrous size.

Some suggest that they benefit from an oxygen-rich atmosphere, while others argue that they had to get bigger in order to keep up with the super-sizing of their likely prey, the early armoured fish.

“There is no simple single explanation,” said Braddy. “It is likely that some ancient arthropods were big because there was little competition from the vertebrates, as we see today. If the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere increased suddenly, it doesn’t mean all the bugs would get bigger.”

A new speed record, but not a good one

Olympique Lyon's Czech forward Milan Baros was caught speeding at 168 miles per hour in his Ferrari, a club source confirmed Friday.

Local newspaper Le Progres quoted police as saying the former Liverpool player had broken the record for speeding for that French region, set by a motorcyclist who reached 154 mph in 2000.

Baros was driving on a motorway not far from Lyon on Thursday when he was caught by French police, who confiscated the black Ferrari and took his driving license.

The 26-year-old, sidelined by an injury, had to take a taxi back to Lyon. He faces a heavy fine and a three-year driving ban.