dontcha make me repeat it

For those who feared the galaxy was going to be vacuumed up by voracious black holes, rest easy: maybe they're not quite as all-consuming as we--we being Stephen Hawking, Superman himself--once thought.

Though Hawking has not yet revealed the detailed maths behind his finding, sketchy details have emerged from a seminar Hawking gave at Cambridge. According to Cambridge colleague Gary Gibbons, an expert on the physics of black holes who was at the seminar, Hawking's black holes, unlike classic black holes, do not have a well-defined event horizon that hides everything within them from the outside world.

In essence, his new black holes now never quite become the kind that gobble up everything. Instead, they keep emitting radiation for a long time, and eventually open up to reveal the information within. "It's possible that what he presented in the seminar is a solution," says Gibbons. "But I think you have to say the jury is still out."

We--we being me--will post an update as soon as a verdict is entered.