The newest and 112th element discovered 13 years ago has been named after Nicolaus Copernicus in a gesture of honor to the 16th century astronomer by its discoverers.

Professor Sigurd Hofmann and his team of 21 scientists from Germany's Centre for Heavy Ion Research preferred to call their discovery copernicium to honor the outstanding Polish scientists who discovered that the Earth orbits the Sun and not the other way around as believed during his time.

Canadian retail chain Metro, Inc., announced the launch of its Green Apple School Program. The program, which officially starts June 1, 2009, will have Metro stores in Ontario and Quebec collect five cents for plastic shopping bags.

The initiative aims to cut the number of plastic bags in circulation in the two Canadian provinces. Metro's target is to halve its plastic bag issuance by December 2010.

China's cyber espionage operation has been stealing sensitive information from government office computers in 103 countries, according to Canadian researchers.

A team of researchers at the University of Toronto has found that China's GhostNet system had sent e-mails containing malware to target computers. The malware prompts the infected computer to download a Trojan program called ghost RAT, which allow attackers to control the computers and bring its data to servers in mainland China.

More teenage Britons are becoming pregnant, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The number of Briton youths under 18 who became pregnant rose to 41.9 for every 1,000 female in 2007 from 40.9 in 2006, the first hike since 2002. The worsening situation of rising teenage pregnancies in the United Kingdom is highlighted by the birth in early February of a daughter to a 15-year old girl and a 13-year old boy from Hailsham, East Sussex.

The Phoenix-based toy maker ModelWorks introduced this week a "Smash-Me Bernie" doll at the industry-only Toy Fair in New York, to target market mad at the crumbling economy, particularly to executives believed responsible for the slump.

The doll was created in the likeness of Bernard Madoff, the Wall Street financier accused of duping investors $50 billion in a Ponzi scheme.