The accelerator tunnel of the Tevatron. Scientists have been analysing a 'bump' in the smasher's data that could reveal a new force of nature. Data from a major U.S. atom smasher may have revealed a new elementary particle, or even a new force of nature like gravity or magnetism, a lab has told AFP. The findings could offer clues to the persistent riddle of mass and how objects obtain it... 

Beck’s Mercury Radio Arts and FNC have reached a deal which will see Beck “transition off of his daily program” later in 2011. Beck’s much-reported troubles with the advertising community are believed to play a role in the decision. Nonetheless, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch has on a few occasions defended Beck and his program from advertiser issues, including in a call with shareholders last... 

Having fun at a party and then forgetting the names of who has just been introduced may be related. According to research conducted in the United States, good humor diminishes the ability to remember information. The team, led by doctoral student, Elizabeth Martin, University of Missouri, asked participants to watch a video. Half were given a video containing a stand-up comedy routine along with instructions... 

An acid rain burned the leaves of trees in Bulgaria, near the border with Romania. Bulgarian weather experts say this might be the result of the bombing campaign in Libya! A very high acidity level (pH 4.9) was registered near Vidin (north-west, on the border with Romania), Lovech (north) and Karnobat (south-east). An even higher acidity (pH 4.5) was reported at Plevna, Dobrich, Montana, Shumen in... 

A most curious phenomenon of ‘gibberish’ speaking reporters sweeping North America has gained its biggest victim to date after reports that the entertainment giant known as Judge Judy had production halted on her highly syndicated show and was brought to hospital yesterday after she began speaking nonsensical words during a live taping. According to Hollywood reporting website RadarOnline.Com,... 

Infection: Officials are trying to discover how intravenous feeding bags became contaminated with bacteria after nine critically ill patients died and 10 others were sickened at Alabama hospitals. Patients were treated with contaminated intravenous feeding bags. Nine Alabama hospital patients who were treated with contaminated intravenous feeding bags have died and the maker has pulled the product... 

An electron scan showsthe HIV-1 virus budding (in green) from a white blood cell in a laboratory. An HIV vaccine that could outwit the deadly virus could undergo human trials in as little as a year’s time, scientists say. The ‘mosaic vaccine’, which is being designed by an international team of investigators, works by being able to adapt to the virus as it mutates. HIV’s ability... 

A snapshot left at a so-called maternity house in California. The building inspectors and police officers walked into the small row of connected town houses here knowing something was amiss. Neighbors had complained about noise and a lot of pregnant women coming and going. And when they went into a kitchen they saw a row of clear bassinets holding several infants, with a woman acting as a nurse hovering... 

Polls have shown Marine Le Pen could beat Nicolas Sarkozy in the first round of next year's presidential election. Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front party was predicted to have made significant progress in the first round of local elections in France, while Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP party fared badly. The French local elections, for part of the cantons in the country’s 100... 

Gifted: Jacob Barnett is so far ahead of his age group he is now leaving university he is developing his own theory on how the universe came into being. A 12-year-old child prodigy has astounded university professors after grappling with some of the most advanced concepts in mathematics. Jacob Barnett has an IQ of 170 – higher than Albert Einstein – and is now so far advanced in his Indiana... 

Madonna during a visit to Malawi in 2007. A high-profile charitable foundation set up to build a school for impoverished girls in Malawi, founded by the singer Madonna and fellow devotees of a prominent Jewish mysticism movement, has collapsed after spending $3.8 million on a project that never came to fruition. The board of directors of the organization, Raising Malawi, has been ousted and replaced... 

Gene Simmons condemned musicians who boycott Israel as ‘fools’. Kiss’ Israeli-born singer-musician Gene Simmons is shouting out loud at the string of musicians who refuse to perform in his homeland. “They’re fools,” the legendary bassist said in an interview on his first return to Israel since leaving the country as a child more than 50 years ago. Simmons described... 

Legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor, a two-time Oscar winner and Hollywood beauty whose screen success was sometimes overshadowed by her tumultuous personal life, died on Wednesday at age 79. She died after a long battle with congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles surrounded by her four children after having been hospitalized six weeks ago, her spokeswoman said in a statement. In... 

Radioactive Moss - Landmannalaugar, Iceland. Miniscule amounts of radioactive particles believed to have come from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant have been detected as far away as Iceland, diplomatic sources said on Tuesday. They stressed the tiny traces of iodine — measured by a network of international monitoring stations as they spread eastwards from Japan across the... 

Farmers who benefited from President Robert Mugabe’s chaotic and corrupt land “reform” programme, which was ostensibly meant to empower disadvantaged blacks, have confessed that they do not have the capacity to feed the nation. The farmers, under their umbrella body Commercial Farmers Union of Zimbabwe (CFUZ), said this during a meeting with seed producers in Harare last week, and confirmed...