just purchasing tix for a s.hawking lecture and was reading what it's going to be about... suppose this is more of what's covered in "Brane New World", anyway, thought this might be of some list interest:
Brane: An object, which appears to be a fundamental ingredient of M-theory, that can have a variety of spatial dimensions. In general, a p-brane has a length in p directions, a 1-brane is a string, a 2-brane is a surface or membrane, etc.
those silly plaid guys. ;P
/a.