Ten Words from Today's NY Times - July 5, 2012

Like Omar Sharif materializing out of the shimmering desert as a man on a camel in “Lawrence of Arabia,” the elusive boson has been coming slowly into view since last winter, as the first signals of its existence grew until they practically jumped off the chart.

Like Omar Sharif materializing out of the shimmering desert as a man on a camel in “Lawrence of Arabia,” the elusive boson has been coming slowly into view since last winter, as the first signals of its existence grew until they practically jumped off the chart.

The particle is predicted to imbue elementary particles with mass.

In Geneva, 1,000 people stood in line all night to get into an auditorium at CERN, where some attendees noted a rock-concert ambience.

According to the Standard Model, the Higgs boson is the only manifestation of an invisible force field, a cosmic molasses that permeates space and imbues elementary particles with mass.

Dr. Gianotti noted that the mass of the putative Higgs, apparently one of the heaviest subatomic particles, made it easy to study its many behaviors.

His comments about the mandate being a tax came on an otherwise slow Fourth of July, ensuring that they dominated the news cycle, albeit one that fewer people than usual were paying attention to.

In the CBS interview, he insisted that he had not imposed a tax and sought to draw an academic distinction between taxes and penalties.

Though this is clearly Romney country — yard signs for the candidate dot lawns everywhere here, the site of his lake house — there were a few interlopers along the parade route.

The plants are short, leaves curling unhappily and with a telltale pale yellow hue rising from stems.