Qatar Launches Ambitious Nobel Prize Programme, Acquires Einstein For $10mn

The small, oil-and-gas rich, state of Qatar has concluded a $10mn deal to acquire the legacy of Albert Einstein in a bid to increase its number of Nobel Prize laureates. The deal is the first step of a an ambitious programme to increase Qatar’s historic contributions to science and will be followed by further deals to acquire Pierre and Maria Curie, Guglielmo Marconi, Max Planck, Enrico Fermi and many others.

Large Hadron Collider to be taken over by social scientists

In an unexpected development, CERN announced earlier today that the Large Hadron Collider will be handed over to teams of social scientists for the next two years. The LHC is scheduled to shut down for essential maintenance and upgrade works until 2015, but an extensive technical assessment carried out by CERN concluded that it could be used for social science experiments during this period. The scheme has received backing from the European Union and various governments as it is expected to generate thousands of jobs for social science graduates.