By Juanita Rivera
True Dork Science & Society Maven

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (TDT)  Teen pop stars: is there anything they can't do?

In a stunning announcement, the Nobel prize committee declared that this year's award in Physics would reward the pioneering work recently published by the collaborative research group composed of MTV favorites Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and lead singer Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit.  The committee noted the trio's groundbreaking discovery of a simple technique for "warm fusion," or the joining of two molecules at room temperature.

The announcement provoked howls of protest from the competing consortium composed of members of boy bands *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, and Ricky Martin, who had come up with a novel means of visually detecting planets orbiting stars millions of light years distant.  "Maybe next year," a disgruntled Martin pouted, flipping his hair disdainfully.

The Durst-Spears-Aguilera group's finding showed that repeated exposure to any of the singers' music causes all molecular motion in nerve cells to cease, subsequently followed by a mysterious clumping of intracellular molecules, and finally, fusion of the molecules' nuclei, coupled with a massive release of energy.  After the findings were duplicated by scientists using neurons in tissue culture, the trio made their surprising announcement.

"Actually, we've known about it for a while," Aguilera stated. "That's why they make us wear those ear-muff thingies when we record."

The announcement was not without its drawbacks: The FDA is considering placing a warning label on albums by the singers, and reporters at the press conference were seen diving under tables when Spears jumped up on the podium and commenced belting out an impromptu a capella version of her hit, "Oops, I Did It Again!"

Spokesmen for the Nobel committee cited the benefits of the discovery in providing a cheap and seemingly limitless source of clean energy, and noted that the award satisfied two of the foundation's primary goals: recognizing major advances in science, and, in the words of the committee, "reaching out to a younger audience.  We recognize that unless our awards are featured on Entertainment Tonight, E! News Daily or MTV News, they will not be taken seriously by the general public, and our awards show will be unable to get the ratings of even the Tony Awards."

When asked about her future scientific plans, Spears replied "I'm going to Disney World!"

Durst was somewhat more circumspect.  "Clearly, we have more work to do in our efforts to come up with a single unifying theory to explain the behavior of all matter.  But for now, I'm gonna get me some of them backstage science groupies!" he said, motioning to the squealing throngs of scantily-clad teenage girls who routinely flock to announcements of major scientific discoveries.