The French government has ruled that it will no longer ask women to specify whether they want to be called "madame" or "mademoiselle" on official documents. As such, "mademoiselle" will be scratched from any passports, tax forms, drivers licences, and more. The move follows a campaign mounted by French feminists to correct what they felt was an unfair burden on women in France, as the two terms denote whether a woman is married (madame) or not (mademoiselle). There's no neutral term, like the English "Ms.", while the term for men, "monsieur", is used regardless of marital status. The move comes in an election year for France, leading campaigners to wonder whether the switch will actually be made official once elections are over. Either way, it gives us Anglos one less minefield to have to tiptoe around while attempting (but let's face it, likely failing) to woe young (or not-so-young) French women.

New data published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has found, once again, that the United States is its fattest member country, followed closely by the ever-portlier United Kingdom. Australia, Spain, and Canada rounded (ha!) out the top five, although the OECD concludes that the number of obese and overweight people in those countries appears to be stabilizing. Previous projections from the OECD had suggested that as many as three-quarters of Americans would be obese or overweight by 2020, but the rate of growth (...) in new cases has levelled off somewhat in the past three years. Ditto for childhood obesity rates, which currently sit at about 40 per cent of the population but have stabilized over the past decade. All in all, the OECD concludes that obesity and overweight rates have basically remained stable across most its member nations in recent years.

American astronomers have discovered a planet just 40 light years away that is almost completely made of water. The planet, named GJ1214b (although we're obviously calling this sucker Waterworld), is about 2.7 times bigger than Earth and weighs about seven times that much, despite having far less solid matter than our delightful little home. The Hubble Telescope originally found the planet in 2009, but just now have the details of GJ1214b been made public. The Hubble team was able to determine the planet's make-up by examining it as it passed in front of its host star, a red dwarf called Ophiuchus. The light given off by the star was filtered through the planet's atmosphere and then analyzed by the Hubble team, which revealed that the atmosphere was almost entirely water vapour. The team also figured out the planet's density, which is far lower than Earth's – a sign that indicated to them that GJ1214b was largely comprised of water. And not just any water, but water in such states as "hot ice" and "superfluid water", owing to the fact that the planet's average temperature is about 450 F. These properties led the team to posit that GJ1214b initially was much further away from the red dwarf, but as it was drawn closer and closer to the star, the planet's water grew hotter and hotter.

Two journalists were killed and two others were wounded in a shelling attack in the Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday. Marie Colvin, a longtime foreign correspondent for The Sunday Times, and Remi Ochlik, a French photojournalist, were slain in the attack in Homs, which has seen the worst fighting of any Syrian city in the year-old uprising. Colvin, 57, had covered more conflicts than most people can name, from the Balkans to Libya to East Timor to Sri Lanka, where she suffered an eye injury in 2001 that led to her wearing an eyepatch for the rest of her days. The deaths of Ochlik and Colvin follow the death of The New York Times' correspondent Anthony Shadid, who died of an asthma attack shortly after crossing the Syrian border into Turkey. Last month, French journalist Gilles Jacquier was killed in a shell attack in Homs, becoming the first journalist to die in the Syrian uprising. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, some 7,636 people have been killed in the Syrian uprising so far.

Yemenis voted in huge numbers today to formally remove President Ali Abdullah Saleh from power and to have him replaced by his vice-president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Hadi was the only name on the ballot to replace Saleh, who had ruled Yemen, the Middle East's poorest country, since 1978. Saleh had given his blessing to the vote as part of a transition of power, as Yemen has been rocked by violent anti-government protests for more than a year. Today's vote is the culmination of months of negotiations between Saleh and the Gulf Co-operation Council, which had sought a peaceful resolution to the Yemeni crisis. In June, after six months of protests, an RPG attack on the Yemeni presidential compound seriously injured Saleh. He was flown to Saudi Arabia to recuperate. Rumours of resignation persisted throughout the summer, but he returned to Yemen in October. Saleh's return prompted a spike in violence, and in November, Saleh finally signed off on a deal with the GCC that would see him cede power to Hadi. Saleh has reportedly been in New York since the end of January for medical procedures.

A Dutch scientist has proclaimed to the world that he will make the world's first "test-tube" hamburger by the end of the year. Dr. Mark Post, a professor at the University of Maastricht, told a conference in Vancouver this weekend that he and his team will make animal skeletal muscle tissue – what we consider meat – out of animal cells that can then be put together into a burger. Post said he received 250,000 euros from an anonymous donor to tackle the project, which he thinks could upend agriculture around the world. Raising livestock for food is one of the least efficient and most wasteful (but also most delicious) forms of food production, but a handful of scientists figure that lab-grown meat could eventually replace cattle, pigs, chickens, and more in our diets. That's all well and good, but we're not sure our foie gras will taste quite the same without a little bit of needless suffering. And that is something that can't be made in a test tube. Yet.

The last remaining version of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" in private hands will be sold at an auction this spring, according to Sotheby's. The auction house expects the fourth piece in the series – this one is drawn in vivid pastels on cardboard, and features a frame with a poem written by Munch – to fetch north of $80 million, meaning the iconic image of a figure screaming on a bridge in Oslo could be one of the priciest pieces of art in history. The drawing is currently owned by Norway's Petter Olsen, whose father was a close friend of Munch. The drawing was completed in 1895, the second in the eventual series of four created between 1883 and 1910. Two of the works were painted with oil and tempera paints, while the fourth was another pastel piece. Olsen's is the only version not in a museum, although he says he intends to open a new museum dedicated to Munch with the proceeds from the auction. Sotheby's will hold the auction for "The Scream" (or "Skrik," in Norwegian) on May 2 in New York.

In news that will likely further undermine efforts to bring peace and stability to a land that's never really known either, Afghan civilians protested on Monday outside a U.S. air force base over allegations that troops accidentally burned a bundle of copies of the Koran. The Islamic holy books were allegedly tossed into a fire pit at the Bagram air force base along with run-of-the-mill garbage and other religious paraphernalia. Afghan workers on the base noticed the burning books and halted the incineration immediately, but that didn't stop a thousand or so locals from descending on the base in protest to throw firebombs at the base today. The U.S. military issued a response calling for an investigation into the matter, with Gen. John Allen stating, "We are thoroughly investigating the incident and we are taking steps to ensure this does not ever happen again. I assure you… I promise you… this was not intentional in any way." We assume that was followed by a seven-minute long chain of profanities that could be heard from Kabul to Kandahar.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the first mass demonstration against (now deceased) Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi in the city of Benghazi. Celebrations are being held across the country to honour those who stood up to the Gadhafi regime and launched a country-wide revolt against the dictator's four-decade rule. That revolt prompted international assistance in the form of air and naval support from NATO and the Arab Leagu under the auspices of the "responsibility to protect" civilians who faced slaughter in the city of Misrata. The campaign culminated in the taking of Tripoli in late August and the death of Gadhafi in his hometown of Sirte. Not to rain on the parade or anything, but since then security concerns have plagued the country. NGOs have pointed to victorious forces torturing their enemies, leading Medecins Sans Frontieres to withdraw from Misrata last month. The ruling Transitional National Council has also yet to assert itself as the dominant authority in many cities that are essentially being run by the same rebel militias, or thuwwar, that threw out Gadhafi's forces last year. There are also numerous concerns over the influx of arms that flooded Libya during the conflict but have yet to be secured.

Italian and Swiss authorities uncovered $6 trillion worth of counterfeit U.S. bonds in three metal boxes in a warehouse in Zurich, Switzerland. The boxes contained thousands of fake $1-billion bonds made to look like they were issued by the U.S. Federal Reserve in 1934. The investigation was spearheaded by anti-mafia agents, and it's believed that the mafia might have planned to sell the counterfeits. Doing so on such a large scale could have caused "severe threats" to the stability of the international financial system, according to Italian prosecutors. After all, that $6 trillion is about half of the U.S. government's debt. The case could also be the world's biggest-ever case of counterfeiting.

Why do you drink? Is it to unwind after a long day at the office? To make a night out that much more enjoyable, if not memorable? To drown the sorrows of an unfulfilling marriage and ungrateful children? If you're a fruit fly, the answer is to win a life-or-death battle against wasp parasites that if left untreated will eat you from the inside out. New research shows that alcohol consumed by fruit flies eating fermenting produce has the effect of killing microscopic wasp larvae that enter the flies' bloodstream via those same pieces of fruit. From LiveScience's Jennifer Welsh:

When infected [fruit fly] larvae are placed in a dish with both alcoholic and non-alcoholic food, they even make a break for the alcohol to reduce their parasite load: After 24 hours, 80 percent of the infected fly larvae were hanging out on the alcohol side of the dish, but only 30 percent of the uninfected larvae were.

"We gave them a choice between food with alcohol and food without alcohol, and the infected flies overwhelmingly went to consume the toxic alcohol food," [Emory University's Todd] Schlenke said. It's as if the flies ask themselves, "Do I want to suffer from toxic levels of alcohol or do I want to die from this wasp?"

Strange! That's all too similar to the "do I want to suffer from toxic levels of alcohol tonight or do I want to suffer through another night of crushing, existential loneliness in this cold, cruel world?" we ask ourselves far too frequently. But while fruit flies are essentially a bunch of drunks out of necessity, it's worth noting, though, that the last time we tried to tell our loved ones that we "drank to kill the parasites" we ended up on Intervention.

Mars Inc. has announced that at the end of next year, they will no longer be making king-size Snickers and Twix chocolate bars, marking the end of a storied chapter in the history of North American snackfoods. Mars officials told Reuters that they're getting rid of the king-size bars because of a commitment to nutrition and healthier eating despite their entire company being predicated on just the opposite. Reports suggest that Mars will introduce a 250-calorie limit on all its chocolate bars next year – less than half of the 540 calories that the current king-sized Snickers boasts. Even the regular Snickers bars tip the scales at 280 calories, although Mars indicated that the confectioner will replace king-size bars with packs of two to four individually wrapped bars for "sharing or saving a portion for later."