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Bert and Britney rival Osama, anthrax on Web

What do Osama bin Laden, Britney Spears, Bert from Sesame Street and the heavy metal band Anthrax have in common?

They were all among the top searches on Internet Web sites for the last week, proving yet again the Internet is nothing if not a mix of serious news alongside a funhouse of wacky pop culture mania, boy bands and hoaxes.

Web searches for anthrax led many confused surfers to the Web site of the heavy metal band of the same name.

"The boys of 'the good Anthrax,' now in a position they never expected, have produced a press release attempting to clear their name," Aaron Schatz, who compiles a list of top search terms on Lycos Inc's search engine, said.

But the music industry won out, at least on the search site Ask Jeeves, which lets users ask full questions instead of typing in keywords. The top question posted by Web surfers was not about terrorism or war, but where to find song lyrics.

The question: "Where can I learn about the bacterial infection anthrax?" came in second to people looking for the words to N'Sync, Nelly and Usher songs, the site said on Friday.

Searches for the antibiotic Cipro gained ground as a search term on Lycos.
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