Pluto's Last Stand
Former planet Pluto has suffered yet another blow to its status. First it was demoted from planet to "dwarf planet," and now research shows that it cannot even lay claim to being the biggest of these.

A study has confirmed that the dwarf planet Eris — the discovery of which prompted Pluto's relegation from planet to dwarf — outranks poor Pluto in mass.

According to National Geographic:

Using the Keck Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope, Michael E. Brown and Emily Schaller at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena have now put the mass of Eris at a third more than Pluto's.

The team, whose work is published in the journal Science, describe their finding as "Pluto's last stand."

Pluto just can't catch a break.

An artist's concept of the Eris and its moon
Credit: BBC News

Unlike Becks, This World Cup Item Not for Sale
A Chinese company that once tried to sell land on the Moon has lost an appeal against a court ruling that stopped it from selling bags of "World Cup air," The Associated Press reports:

Xinhua News Agency said that Beijing Lunar Village Aeronautics Science and Technology Co. lost a suit against the Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce, which refused its application to sell "special air from a special place."

Last December, the Chaoyang District People's Court ruled against the company's proposal to sell green plastic bags full of air from stadiums that hosted matches in the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Li Jie, the company's chief executive officer, had planned to sell the bags to fans for 50 yuan (US$6.60) each.

Robo Wedding
A robot was priest/master of ceremonies for a South Korean wedding last weekend.

"Tiro" the robot — whose value is around 200 million won (US$215,000) — spoke "in a sweet female voice," according to Taipei Times.

Other robots were used to guide guests or give performances at the wedding ceremony of Hanool engineer Seok Gyeong-jae and his bride.


The groom was one of the engineers who designed Tiro.
Credit: geeksugar

Worst Internet-Inspired Terms
A poll on behalf of the Lulu Blooker Prize asked 2,091 adults to vote for the most hideous words that have escaped from cyberspace. AFP reports the top five Internet-spawned terms that should be cast down into the eternal fires of hell were:

5. Blook
4. Netiquette
3. Blog
2. Blogosphere
1. Folksonomy

2007's Worst Jobs in Science
According to Popular Science:

10. Whale-Feces Researcher — They scoop up whale dung, then dig through it for clues.
9. Forensic Entomologist — Solving murders by studying maggots...
8. Olympic Drug Tester — When your job is drug testing the world's top athletes, there's no way to win. (Seriously, you want to test the guy to the right for steroids?)
7. Gravity Research Subject — They're strapped down so astronauts can blast off.
6. Microsoft Security Grunt — It's like wearing a big sign that reads "Hack Me."
5. Coursework Carcass Preparer — They kill, pickle and bottle the critters that school kids cut up.
4. Garbologist — Think Indiana Jones… in a dumpster.
3. Elephant Vasectomist — When your patient is Earth's largest land animal, sterilization is a pretty big job.
2. Oceanographer — Nothing but bad news, day in and day out...
1. Hazmat Diver — They swim in sewage. 'Nuff said.

Beer-sicles: When a Cold One Simply Doesn't Do the Trick
A suburban restaurant in Alexandria, Va., is "catching some heat" from state liquor authorities, AP reports.

The restaurant's frozen beer pops come shaped like a traditional Popsicle for four bucks, or a larger beer cone for six.

But the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control tells AP the beer-sicles may violate state regulations, as regulations require that beer be served in its original container or served to the customer immediately once it's poured.

The good people at Rustico Restaurant say they're working on a way to keep serving their beer pops, while complying with the law.

Big 3 Execs Puzzled, Seen Counting Their Bonuses
Because of declining sales, Nissan executives have chosen not to get bonuses.

Chief executive Carlos Ghosn told shareholders at a recent meeting in Tokyo that senior executives "took responsibility" for its disappointing performance, according to BBC News.

Nissan, which suffered its first fall in profits in seven years, has trailed rivals Toyota and Honda, and shareholders expressed concerns about future product quality.

Woman Fired for Demanding Fair Pay Awarded $2M
A former Wal-Mart pharmacist who claimed she was fired after asking to be paid the same as male colleagues won a nearly $2 million award against the retail giant this week.

Cynthia Haddad was fired in April 2004 after more than 10 years at a Massachusetts Wal-Mart, AP reports. She claimed in court that she was fired because she asked to be paid the same as her male counterparts, including a bonus given to pharmacy managers. The company paid the bonus, but fired her two weeks later. Before Haddad was canned, she'd received "rave" performance reviews.

The world's largest retailer has been facing numerous complaints of underpaying its workers, while also facing the biggest sexual discrimination case in U.S. history.

Accomplishment is Overrated, Anyway
After 25-year-old Emmalee Bauer was fired by the Sheraton hotel company late last year, she sought unemployment compensation from the Iowa agency that offers benefits to employees terminated through no fault of their own.

However, according to News of the Weird, the judge noted that Bauer had written a 300-page journal, during office hours, chronicling her efforts to avoid work. Among her entries: "This typing thing seems to be doing the trick. It just looks like I am hard at work on something very important," and, "Once lunch is over, I will come right back to writing to piddle away the rest of the afternoon," and, "Accomplishment is overrated, anyway."

Her claim was denied.

The 15 Geekiest Vacations
via eWeek (Click links for more info.):

15. National Computer Museum
14. The Geek's Baseball Stadium Tour
13. World Science Fiction Convention
12. Great Places for Nerdy Reasons
11. The Queen Mary 2
10. National Air and Space Museum
9. International Spy Museum
8. The Quark Bar
7. Space Camp
6. The Star Wars Odyssey Tour
5. The Pennsic War
4. Star Trek Convention
3. Geek Cruises
2. Geek Is in the Details
1. Visiting Blog Buddies

NASA's Chandra Sees Brightest Supernova Ever
The brightest stellar explosion ever recorded may be a long-sought new type of supernova, according to observations by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ground-based optical telescopes last month. The discovery indicates that violent explosions of extremely massive stars were relatively common in the early universe, and that a similar explosion may be ready to go off in our own galaxy.

An artist's illustration of supernova SN 2006gy
Credit: Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss; X-ray: NASA/CXC/UC Berkeley/N.Smith et al.; IR: Lick/UC Berkeley/J.Bloom & C.Hansen


Cheers.