Good news today. Yesterday afternoon Werner Faymann, the Austrian Federal Chancellor, announced that Austria will not leave CERN, as previously suggested. An official confirmation of this decision will be received this afternoon by letter by the President of the CERN Council.

The decision of Austria does not surprise me - it would have been both crazy and self-destructive for Austrians to decide to leave the rich program of particle physics that they have contributed heavily to make a reality.

The swine flu is spreading silently and slowly throughout the World, but it does not make headlines any more -or not yet again, at least. So far, a total of 8565 cases have been reported in five continents, and 73 people have died of it. The last death reported is a 55-years-old teacher in New York, who passed away after a five-day respiratory crisis.

This influenza is not as deadly as initially thought, if we look at the numbers: given the above numbers we obtain a death rate of less than one in a hundred -or, to be precise, 8.52+-0.99 per mille, where the uncertainty given is just statistical.

Tired of reading about science ?
In need of a boost to your ego ?
You think you are smarter than me ?
Can you play chess at a reasonable level ? Or, do you have a chess program and you don't mind cheating ?

If you answered "yes" to the above questions, why don't you try to beat at chess a tenured particle physicist with a Ph.D. ? I am willing to take your challenge.