Rutger H. Boels and Tobias Hansen of DESY, Hamburg released a very interesting 66-page-long hep-th preprint today,
String theory in target spaceThey are effectively generalizing the Britto-Cachazo-Feng-Witten (BCFW) techniques from the case of quantum field theory (gauge theory) to the case of perturbative string theory.
Slightly off-topic. Congratulations to Joe Polchinski who will be 60 in the spring but who already has the Joefest now; see Clifford Johnson and Matt Strassler. If you need a higer-res version of the picture, let me know.
One may say – and they probably say – that they're returning to the mode of reasoning that existed shortly after the birth of string theory (the publication of the Veneziano amplitude) before it was shown that Veneziano's amplitude followed from a theory of strings.
Incidentally, another cute Czech snowboarder Ms Šárka Sharky Pančochová deserved a medal as well – according to virtually all observers – but the referees screwed it. A journalist and ugly, stuttering, favored spoiled brat Mr Pavel Novotný suggested that Sharky shouldn't whine. So Sharky offered you a prize: if you slap the spoiled journalistic brat into his face and if you record the well-deserved punishment and send it to Sharky, you will get a new snowboard from her including her signature and "thanks". Good luck; similar journalists should be beaten approximately 24 hours a day. ;-) You will need to be fast because lots of Sharky's fans have already found the address of the son of the famous host and comedian.