Steven Chu—director of the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a professor of physics at U.C. Berkeley, a 1997 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, and author of Britannica’s entry on spectroscopy—has been tapped by President-elect Barack Obama to be his Secretary of Energy.

He joins on Obama’s team another Berkeley colleague and Britanncia contributor, economist Christina Romer, author of the economic sections of Britannica’s extensive article on the Great Depression. Professor Romer will be chairing the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Internationally acclaimed body painter and illustrator Guido Daniele of Italy presents a sampling of his work weekly at the Britannica Blog.

For more information on his art, especially his very popular “Handimals” series (hands painted as animals), of which this is one example, click below.

At a press conference last week announcing the arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Chicago’s top FBI official placed Illinois in contention: “If it isn’t the most corrupt state in the United States, it’s certainly one hell of a competitor,” he said.

Given the crimes our sturdily coiffed gov is accused of (selling a Senate seat, along with anything else not nailed to the floor), it would seem like Illinois is a shoe-in.

Not so, according to the Corporate Crime Reporter.

Louisiana is the dirtiest …

On behalf of most, if not all, of the staff of and contributors to the Britannica Blog, congratulations to Senator Barack Obama, who yesterday was elected president of the United States. The vote was probably 365 for Obama to 173 for his opponent, Senator John McCain, but the numbers will not be official until certified by Congress next month.

What’s that? You say you thought he was elected last month?

Ah, but you’re forgetting your U.S. Constitution.

I was recently in the changing area of a trendy boutique where a lot of younger women shop. A teenage girl was in the room next to mine with her boyfriend. She was complaining about being “disgustingly fat” and how she had gone from a size zero to a size 4.

Her knight in shining armour responded, “Maybe you should start hitting the gym.”

Truly unbelievable …

Coming to a library near you …

Beginning in January of next year, Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Great Books of the Western World will be available electronically, in its entirety, at libraries and institutions. Through an agreement between Britannica and Ingram Digital, the Great Books will be published on Ingram’s “eBook” platform, MyiLibrary, and will be accessible by PC.

Long-lost videos on the art of reading with Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren will also be available.

The Roman Emperor Nero—infamous for his personal debaucheries and extravagances and, on doubtful evidence, for his burning of Rome and persecutions of Christians—was born this day in AD 37.

His mother, Julia Agrippina, depicted here, had a similarly infamous reputation—that of poisoness.

Every object in my composition is symbolic of Agrippina, her life and times …

Once again running the risk of being suspected of mere partisanship, I call your attention to this news item from England: Words associated with Christianity and British history taken out of children’s dictionary, in the Telegraph.

The Oxford dictionary people are in the pillory, and rightly so, for perpetrating a lexicographic fraud on the schoolchildren of Britain.

“Abbey,” “bishop,” “saint,” “sin,” “monarch,” “empire,” and “devil,” among many others — all are now gone from the dictionary.

NBC’s Lee Cowan: Blagojevich ‘Fell Victim to History’ …

Read on for story details …

Editor’s Note: The Britannica Blog welcomes other examples of what readers see as media bias, be it liberal or conservative.

When will there be peace in the Middle East?

One harbinger will be when Palestinian mothers decide that it would be better for their children to be doctors, engineers and lawyers than for them to become martyrs in “Paradise.”

Mothers have often been driving forces for change.

The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, for example, was organized by Argentine women who marched in front of the presidential palace in Buenos Aires to demand information about their missing sons and daughters ….