1. Have you read the paper by Forbes and Kroupa accepted for publication in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia entitled "What is a galaxy? Cast your vote here..." (its available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.3309)
Schubert and Lowenstein are not the first to uncover organisms that are astonishingly long-lived. About a decade ago, there were claims of discoveries of 250-million-year-old bacteria. The results weren't reproduced, and remain controversial. Schubert, however, was able to reproduce his results. Not only did he grow the same organisms again in his own lab, he sent crystals to another lab, which then got the same results. "So this wasn't something that was just a contaminant from our lab," Schubert said.
The article also mentions that his original finding was about a year ago, but his work is actually being published now.
A collection of hospitals in eight cities around the globe has successfully demonstrated that the use of a simple surgical checklist during major operations can lower the incidence of deaths and complications by more than one third.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090114172304.htm
Our business in life is not to succeed but to continue to fail in high spirits. -- Robert Louis Stevenson