I'm posting this one mainly because the authors came up with a title that caught my attention and showed some creative imagination.

Paper: astro-ph/0509039
Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2005 07:15:43 GMT (173kb)

Title: Local Pancake Defeats Axis of Evil

Authors: Chris Vale

Comments: 4 pages, submitted to ApJL
\\
Among the biggest surprises revealed by COBE and confirmed by WMAP
measurements of the temperature anisotropy of the CMB are the anomalous
features in the 2-point angular correlation function on very large angular
scales. In particular, the $\ell = 2$ quadrupole and $\ell = 3$ octopole terms
are surprisingly planar and aligned with one another, which is highly unlikely
for a statistically isotropic Gaussian random field, and the axis of the
combined low-$\ell$ signal is perpendicular to ecliptic plane and the plane
defined by the dipole direction. Although this $< 0.1 %$ 3-axis alignment might
be explained as a statistical fluke, it is certainly an uncomfortable one,
which has prompted numerous exotic explanations as well as the now well known
``Axis of Evil'' (AOE) nickname. Here, we present a novel explanation for the
AOE as the result of weak lensing of the CMB dipole by local large scale
structures in the local universe, and demonstrate that the effect is
qualitatively correct and of a magnitude sufficient to fully explain the
anomaly.

\\ ( http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0509039 , 173kb)