The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to three people, all Japanese-born, for their work with particle physics.  Nature News has the details.  Specifically, they did research on broken symmetry and C-P violation.

CERN has officially launched the largest computing grid on Earth, for now.  Even though the LHC is down for a while, the computing grid is now operational and will be available to process all the data from the LHC.

The LHC Computing Grid consists of many other computing grids around the world.  Also, the LHC@home project acts in conjunction with the grid.

According to a new study, 6.7 grams of chocolate per day is the optimum amount to protect against cardiovascular disease.  So stock up on the chocolate goodness and take your daily dose of cocoa with your vitamins.

In other news, the PRIMA (Phase-Referenced Imaging Microarcsecond Astrometry) instrument has been installed at the VLT.  The press release is here.

Rule #1: Don't confuse Star Wars and Star Trek.

Rule#2: Don't try to quote either of them unless you actually know the quote.

Rule#3: Don't break both of the previous rules at the same time.

Read about it here.

Wow.  I kinda feel sorry for the guy, but what do you expect when he breaks all three rules?

Matt sent me a link to some good photos of the LHC.  They are all interesting in both an artistic and scientific point of view.  Check them out if you haven't already.

Scientists at Harvard have developed some semiconductor laser improvements.  Instead of using complex optics to focus the light from semiconductor lasers, they use "a plasmonic collimator, consisting of an aperture and a periodic pattern of sub-wavelength grooves, directly on the facet of a quantum cascade laser emitting at a wavelength of ten microns, in the invisible part of the spectrum known as the mid-infrared where the atmosphere is transparent."

Yeah, basically they added some small stuff to the surface of the semiconductor that will eventually cut down on the amount of optics needed to use the lasers.  It will probably lead to cheaper disc drives (CD, DVD, BR, etc.), laser printers, barcode readers, and some new devices making use of the lasers in the future.  Cool stuff.

Also, some new information about the Aurora Borealis has been discovered.

And there is a really cool picture from Hubble of very distant galaxies viewed through a gravitational lens.

So you might think the world's largest radio telescope is the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.  For the most part, that is correct; Arecibo is the world's largest single radio telescope.

But with today's technology, it is possible to use many telescopes together to simulate one giant telescope.  This specific technique is called Very Long Baseline Interferometry, or VLBI.  The world's largest emulated radio telescope uses VLBI with data from the Arecibo Observatory along with several other radio telescopes spread across the world.

With VLBI, astronomers can record images immensly more detailed than anything possible with a single radio telescope.  The EXPReS project is the first major, worldwide VLBI test.  On May 22nd, the team conducted their first run, successfully gathering and processing images from radio telescopes across four continents to emulate a telescope with a diameter of nearly 11,000 km.  Yes, that is definitely the world's largest telescope.  VLBI is opening many new possibilities, allowing us to understand more about how the universe works.  If you're a geek like me, that's cool.

Read more about VLBI here, here, here, here, and here.

So, after all the hoopla about Pluto and the definition of a planet, the IAU has decided on a name for Pluto and similar objects.  Are you ready?  The term they have chosen is... (drum roll) ... Plutoids!

Wow, it took a group of some of the worlds best astronomers and scientists nearly two years to decide on the term Plutoid?  Um, didn't someone think of that about two days after the decision that Pluto is not a planet?  I guess they had to study all possibilities for a name, get funding to do research on which name would best suit Pluto and Pluto-like objects, and finally decide on the best name.  I had hoped they would at least come up with something a little more interesting, or maybe a crazy acronym.

Obviously, there is not anyone willing to be creative, like Gell-Mann.  Here are some ideas for more interesting names:

• Shlomo (just randomness)

• WBP: WannaBe Planet

• TOTFA: Tiny Object That's Far Away

• BRAS:  Big Rock Around the Sun

• TSOTABAF:  Tiny Space Object That A Bored Astronomer Found

• ReSSPLOOATS: Really Small Sorta-Planet-Like Object Orbiting Around The Sun

• Phlanet (usually pronounced with a French accent, as in "Flah-neigh;" sometimes pronounced like the food, flan, where the ending -t is silent)

But alas, I am not the arbiter of planet-like-object naming schemes.  Can you think of any other good names?