A computer screen is pictured before a scientific seminar to deliver the latest update in the search for the Higgs boson at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Meyrin, near Geneva July 4, 2012.

GENEVA | Wed Dec 19, 2012 3:07pm EST

GENEVA (Reuters) - Scientists at Europe's CERN research center said on Wednesday they may be able to definitively announce at a conference next March that they had discovered the elusive Higgs boson.

But they dismissed suggestions circulating widely on blogs and even in some science journals that instead of just one type of the elementary particle they might have found a pair.

CERN researchers said in July they had found what appeared to be the particle that gives mass to matter, as imagined and named half a century ago by theoretical physicist Peter Higgs. But they stopped short of saying for sure it was the Higgs boson, pending further research.

"The latest data we have on this thing we have been watching for the past few months show that it is not simply 'like a Higgs' but is very like a Higgs," said Oliver Buechmuller of the CMS team at CERN's Large Hadron Collider.

"The way things are going, by the Moriond meeting we may be able to stop calling it Higgs-like and finally say it is the Higgs," he told Reuters, referring to the annual gathering which will take place at the Italian Alpine resort of La Thuile, 120 kilometers (75 miles) from CERN, on March 2-9.

Suggestions that there may be two Higgs, a particle that made formation of the universe possible after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, emerged after a progress report by CERN scientists last week. Its definitive discovery that would almost certainly win a Nobel Prize.

Commentators, including one in the journal Scientific American, said differing measurements - so far unexplained - of the new boson's mass that were recorded by ATLAS - a parallel but separate research team to CMS at CERN, indicated there might be twin particles.

"That is quite an exaggeration," said Pauline Gagnon, a scientist with ATLAS. "The facts are so much simpler: we measure one quantity in two different ways and obtain two slightly different answers.

"However, when we combine all the information, we clearly get only one value. Since we have checked all other possibilities, it really looks like a statistical fluctuation. Such things happen."

Buechmueller, whose CMS team found no such variation in their measurements, said he agreed there was no special relevance in the ATLAS discrepancy. "It will probably disappear when more data is in and analyzed," he added.

The $10-billion Large Hadron Collider, a 27-km (17-mile) circular construct deep under the Franco-Swiss border, will shut down for some two years in February to allow a doubling of its power and its capacity to probe cosmic mysteries

(Reported by Robert Evans; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

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Fri Oct 12, 2012 6:49pm EDT

n">(Reuters) - Plans to save Big Bird, the fuzzy yellow character on U.S. public television's "Sesame Street," from possible extinction are taking shape in the form of a puppet-based protest next month dubbed the "Million Muppet March."

The demonstration is planned for November 3 at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., three days before the general election.

Before the presidential debate between Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney had concluded on October 3, two men who had never met each floated the Million Muppet March idea on social media. They immediately united to defend public broadcasting.

Romney pledged during the debate to end the U.S. federal government's subsidy for the Public Broadcasting Service despite his professed love for Big Bird, one of the characters on PBS's 43-year-old children's educational program "Sesame Street," which features the Muppets.

Michael Bellavia, 43, an animation executive from Los Angeles, and Chris Mecham, 46, a university student in Idaho, separately came up with the Million Muppet March idea in response.

Big Bird, played by actor Carroll Spinney in an 8-foot (2.5-metre) bird costume, is strictly speaking not a member of the group of puppet characters known as the Muppets.

Bellavia bought the Internet address www.millionmuppetmarch.com during the debate and discovered Mecham had already started a Facebook page by the same name.

Within 30 minutes of the end of the debate they were on the phone with each other, planning the march.

"I figured, why just make it a virtual show of support? Why not take this opportunity because it seemed like there was already a growing interest in it and actually make it an active, participatory event," Bellavia said. "I literally just said, 'It's happening.'"

Both men consider themselves fans of "Sesame Street," perhaps the best-known program on PBS, which received $445 million of $3.8 trillion in federal budget outlays in 2012.

Coming from rural Idaho, Mecham said he was aware how important public broadcasting was in sparsely populated areas that receive no other signals over the air.

"Romney was using Muppets as a rhetorical device to talk about getting rid of public broadcasting, which is really so much bigger than Sesame Street," Mecham said. "While he was still talking I was thinking of ways I could express my frustration at that argument. Before the debates were over I had put up the Million Muppet March Facebook page."

The two men said they immediately decided to work together.

Mecham is a writer who is studying political science at Boise State University out of his interest in healthcare policy.

Bellavia is president of the animation studio Animax Entertainment, founded by former Second City actor Dave Thomas.

They may fall short of attracting a million people, or Muppets, to the event, but they do hope to create what Bellavia called a "lovefest" featuring skits and musical performances with Muppets.

"It does seem like we might get close to the biggest ever assemblage of puppets in one place," he said, "and probably the most ever puppets marching on Washington."

The Million Man March was a gathering held on the National Mall on October 16, 1995 to promote civil rights, with an emphasis on African Americans, and was led by rights advocate Louis Farrakhan. (Editing by Eric Walsh)

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