Geneva, Sep 10 : Scientists have fired the first beam of protons around a 27.36-kilometre tunnel on Wednesday in science''s next great step to understand the makeup of the universe.

The Large Hadron Collider built since 2003 at a cost of 3.8 billion dollars provides scientists with much greater power than ever before to smash the components of atoms in a bid to see how they are made.

"The beam is the size of a human hair," Paola Catapano, a spokeswoman for the host European Organisation for Nuclear Research said after the protons were fired into the accelerator below the Swiss-French border.

Washington, September 10 : Ever wondered why predatory wasps hunt free-flying bees, rather than foraging bees directly from the honeybee nest?

Well, researchers at the University of Graz, Austria, and the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, UK, say that it is all because the shimmering—a remarkable capacity of rapid communication in giant honeybees—acts as a defensive mechanism and repels predatory hornets.

The researchers describe shimmering as a phenomenon wherein thousands of honeybees flip their abdomens upwards within a split-second to produce a Mexican Wave-like pattern across their nests.

Geneva, September 10 : The first beam in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN was successfully steered today morning around the full 27 kilometers of the world''s most powerful particle accelerator, which is located on the border of France and Switzerland.

"It''s a fantastic moment," said LHC project leader Lyn Evans. "We can now look forward to a new era of understanding about the origins and evolution of the universe," he added.

The LHC is the world''s largest and the highest-energy particle accelerator.

Washington, Sept 10 : Food factory work surfaces coated in titanium are better than those of stainless steel, for they can cut the number of food poisoning cases every year, a new study has revealed.

In the food industry, work surfaces need to be easy to clean, but wear of food contact surfaces through abrasion, cleaning and impact damage increases the surface roughness, making it quite difficult to clean the surfaces.

Researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University, UK have examined the way different work surfaces harbour bacteria that could contaminate food and found that titanium coated surfaces can make it more difficult for pathogenic bacteria to attach themselves to the metal.

Paris - The International Energy Agency (IEA) said Wednesday that it has revised downward its forecast of global oil demand for this year and 2009.

In its Monthly Oil Report, issued in Paris, the IEA said the reason was that the global economic slump and high crude oil prices during the summer caused weaker-than-expected oil deliveries in industrial nations.

"The data suggest that the demand impact of weaker economic conditions and high prices during the summer - when oil prices reached an all-time peak - was more marked than expected, notably in the United States," the IEA said.

"Furthermore, the effects of the ongoing hurricane season on US demand are subject to considerable uncertainty."

Berlin, September 10 : An international team o