Avenger (some assembly required)

In robotic Scarlett Johansson news, reporters covering the robotic Scarlett Johansson news beat were stunned to discover something to report.

Ricky Ma had dreamed of designing a Scarlett Johansson robot since he was little.  “When I was a child, I liked robots.  There were Transformers, cartoons about robots fighting each other and games about robots.  Naturally, this got me thinking about building a robotic Scarlett Johansson that could be folded into the shape of a car and fight other Scarlett Johansson robots.”

A more perfect boson

In particle extremist news, a group of boffin hardliners are now claiming the Higgs boson is the Higgsiest bosons you can get without a prescription.

Bosons are one of the three basic “-sons” that make up the universe, along with unisons (“particles that happen at the same time”) and johanssons (“hot and/or bright particles”). Bosons decay into fermions, which are a group of particles that include leptons and quarks, as far as you know.

Preliminary studies hinted with a fair amount of certainty that the particle spotted by ATLAS (A Tunnel Like A Subway, pictured above) and CMS (CERN Metro Station) experiments had properties consistent with a Higgs boson.

The results were confirmed by boffins at the Mysterious Item Talkathon (MIT).  “This is an enormous breakthrough,” said Markus Klute, a leader of the International Group of Boffins.

(Author’s Note: A boffin is a genetically altered bobolink / puffin hybrid).

But the work doesn’t stop there. Boffins always like more evidence for a start, because it makes them feel like actual scientists, but they also need to know what kind of Higgs they’re looking at. For example, there could be a group of many different kinds of Higgs particles, depending on different extensions of the Standard Model, like leather leptons or V8 quarks.

(Editor’s Note: No, a boffin is a genetically modified bobcat / muffin hybrid.)

“What we’re trying to do is establish whether this particle is really consistent with the Higgs boson, and not an impostor that looks like it but is really one of those cheap knockoff bosons you see for sale on the streets of New York City,” Klute explained.

To do this, the CMS Collaboration, an all-star team of boffins from London, Paris, and Wisconsin fired protons at each other in a six metre solenoid, forming a liquid known as bosonic vinegar. (One metre = 2.32 times the height of a bishop’s mitre). (Disclaimer: No boffins were injured by flying protons in the course of this experiment.)

(Reader’s Note: You’re both wrong. A boffin is a boat shaped like a coffin.)

Just to make extra sure though, the team plans to spend more time fiddling around with the LHC (Looking for Higgs Contraption) again next year. “With the current level of precision, there is still room for other models, so we need to accumulate more grant money to figure out if there is a deviation,” Klute said with his hand out. “Hey, us boffins gotta eat, you know.”

“Although if we do find a deviation from the Standard Model, it is likely to be a very closely related one,” he added. ® (Disclaimer: Yes, this statement is trademarked in the original article.)

(Bystander’s Note: I was just passing by and I heard your argument. A boffin is actually when you use a bonobo as the MacGuffin in a story, as in the classic 1942 film The Maltese Bonobo).

Hot and/or Bright Star Scarlett Johansson (shown here with her clones searching for bosons in unison), told paparazzi that the main characteristics of this new particle are consistent with the Standard Model, but that she was waiting for the Deluxe LX Model to come out sometime next year.

(Ransom Note: A boffin is the genetically modified offspring of singer Bonnie Raitt and talk show host Merv Griffin. Put $100,000 in unmarked bills under a bench in Griffith Park or you’ll never see her again.)

® “Although if we do find a deviation from the Standard Model, it is likely to be a very closely related one.” is a Registered Trademark of closely related Standard Models Kendall and Kylie Jenner (pictured below).

Dialing Theron Number

Earlier today, I was at Best Buy looking for a new home phone.  (Disclaimer: A telephone is a device for transmitting audio messages from one person to another using an advanced form of communications called “complete sentences”.  Kids, text your parents about it.)

The phones that were out of the boxes all had a sticker over the display, showing the large, friendly character font for the caller ID, indicating how easily you can tell that your old friend UNAVAILABLE is calling from UNKNOWN NUMBER.

In this case, all of the phones had the same sticker, indicating that a call was coming in from Charlie Johnson at 800-222-3111.  However, in my haste, I misread the name.  In one of my Duck of the Day moments, I swore that the name on the incoming call was Charlize Theron.

Note to the good people in marketing at AT&T: People (or maybe just me and a few others) would be much more likely to buy AT&T land line phones if they included receiving calls from Charlize Theron (shown below trying to make a phone call, possibly to an AT&T land line subscriber).

 

Author’s Note: In the course of doing research for this post (Disclaimer: looking for a picture of Charlize Theron holding a phone), I discovered the picture below.

 

Apparently, in her younger days, Charlize Theron was Scarlett Johansson.  (Disclaimer: A land line that receives calls from Scarlett Johansson would also have marketing potential.)