The first of April always brings out the prankster in people - even scientists. From the prestigious CERN declaring that The Force exists to Google displaying a fully reversed version of the search engine's homepage at com.google, the web is teeming today with practical jokes and PR stunts - some funny, some memorable, and others just plain bad.
Here's a look at some of them:
1. "May the Force be with EU"
Scientists with the European Organization for Nuclear Research, better known as CERN, reported on its website the "first unequivocal evidence for The Force" using the Large Hadron Collider. "Very impressive, this result is," said a diminutive green spokesperson for the laboratory.
"The Force is what gives a particle physicist his powers," said CERN theorist Ben Kenobi of the University of Mos Eisley, Tatooine. "It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us; and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together."
Meanwhile, dark-matter researcher Dave Vader was unimpressed, breathing heavily in disgust throughout the press conference announcing the results, and dismissing the cosmological implications of the Force with the quip "Asteroids do not concern me".
For Star Wars fans, this news comes as no surprise.
2. Google on Reverse
Google users could see a fully reversed version of the search engine's homepage at com.google. What's more, they also made the 1980s arcade game Pac-Man available to play on Google Maps.
3. A solution for the Greek debt crisis
Commerzbank sought a solution to Greece's financial woes, saying Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis had proposed a one-off license fee of 1 euro on European Union users of Pythagoras' theorem.
The resulting revenues from April 1, 570 BC to April 1. 2015 would be 107,443,980,002,362,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 euro at a compounded interest rate of 4 percent, it asserted.
4. A new face on British currency
The Sun has reported that British music mogul and "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell will begin to appear on £5 notes. He will join other prominent British people such as the Charles Darwin, the Queen and Adam Smith.
5. BMW launches a series of mouth guards
BMW has announced the launch of a series mouth guards offering rugby players "the same impact protection as our drivers."
"The interior of the guard uses tyre tread technology and grips accordingly, while the BMW signature kidney grille lies between the front incisors acting as an elegant respiration vent," it says on its website.
