LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - French electro-dance music duo Daft Punk held onto the top spot for a second week on the Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday, staving off new entries from veteran rockers Alice in Chains and John Fogerty.

"Random Access Memories," the highly anticipated fourth studio album from Daft Punk, sold 92,000 copies in its second week of release, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan.

But sales of the album dropped 73 percent from last week, when it debuted at the top of the weekly Billboard 200 chart with 339,000 copies. Total sales of the album since its May 17 release are 432,000 copies.

Daft Punk's 1970s-inspired retro record held off competition from three new albums in the top 10 this week. Veteran rockers Alice in Chains landed at No. 2 with their latest, "The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here," selling 61,000 albums.

Country rocker John Fogerty came in at No. 3 this week with his ninth solo studio album, "Wrote a Song For Everyone," which sold more than 50,000 copies.

The album features collaborations with musicians including Miranda Lambert, Brad Paisley and rock band Foo Fighters, singing old and new songs from Fogerty's vast catalog.

British girl group quartet Little Mix, formed in 2011 on the UK's "The X Factor" TV talent show, saw their debut album "DNA" notch No. 4 this week, after selling 49,000 copies.

Little Mix follows in the footsteps of British boy band One Direction, also formed on "The X Factor" in 2010. The band has since conquered the U.S. pop charts with two No. 1 albums and a sold-out world tour.

Overall album sales in the week ending June 2 totaled 4.8 million, down 4 percent from the same week in 2012.

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; editing by Patricia Reaney and Dan Grebler)

GENEVA (Reuters) - Francois Englert, the Belgian physicist widely tipped to share a Nobel prize this year with Britain's Peter Higgs, said on Tuesday many cosmic mysteries remain despite the discovery of the boson that gave shape to the universe.

And he predicted that new signs of the real makeup of the cosmos, and what might lie beyond, should emerge from 2015 when the world's most powerful research machine - the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN - goes back into operation.

"Things cannot be as simple as our Standard Model," Englert told Reuters, referring to the draft concept of how the universe works for which the last missing element was provided when the long-sought particle named for Higgs was spotted last year.

"There are so many questions that the model doesn't answer. There must be much, much more. And we look to getting closer to understanding what that is when the data starts emerging from a more powerful LHC," he said.

Englert, 81, spoke during a visit to CERN, the research center near Geneva where discovery of the boson - which with its linked force field made creation of stars and planets possible after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago - was made.

The giant subterranean LHC was shut down in February to be equipped to collide particles at close to the speed of light with twice as much force as during its first three years of operations, crowned with the Higgs' appearance.

Englert's visit, with Belgium's prime minister Elio Di Rupo, came amid discussion among scientists on whether the particle should remain tied to the name of Higgs or also bear a reference to Englert and another Belgian physicist Robert Brout.

THREE RESEARCH EFFORTS

The concept of a particle and field that turned flying matter into mass after the primeval explosion that gave birth to the universe emerged in 1964 - the product of three separate research efforts by six physicists in all.

While Higgs, now 83, worked largely alone, Brout - who died in 2011 - and Englert combined their investigations in Belgium while another team - two Americans, Gerald Guralnik and Carl Hagen and Briton Tom Kibble - worked on the idea in London.

Brout and Englert published a paper on their research at the end of August 1964, and Higgs of the University of Edinburgh issued his own six weeks later, followed by Guralnik, Hagen and Kibble a month after that.

But as interest grew in the idea of what was initially called a "scalar" field and boson, the concept became popularly associated with Higgs. Exactly how this happened has never become clear, although there are several theories.

In Belgium it was dubbed the "Brout-Englert-Higgs" or BEH mechanism, a term used by Englert in a short speech to CERN researchers and students on Tuesday. Belgian newspapers have championed the idea of renaming it that way.

Others, including Hagen himself, have insisted that the work of his London team which was based at the British capital's Imperial College, should be recognized.

The issue has gained spice because it is likely that the Nobel committee will award its annual physics prize this autumn for discovery of the boson - and such an honor can, under current rules, go to no more than three living people.

CERN, and its U.S. counterpart Fermilab near Chicago, decline to take a position, either on the prize or a name change. "One thing is clear, the Nobel people have a helluva problem to resolve," said one senior CERN official.

(Reported by Robert Evans; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Brown, who joined the organization in 1982 as a researcher and became program director in 1993, died Sunday in New York City, Human Rights Watch said on its website.

"She was principled and uncompromising and played a big part in making Human Rights Watch that way," Kenneth Roth, the group's executive director, said in a statement.

"Cynthia could be tough as nails, and plenty intimidating, but once you got to know her she had a warmth and empathy that made her a great friend and clearly informed her passion for the human rights cause," Roth said.

Brown served six years as the group's program director. She left the staff in 1999 but remained as an adviser and a member of the organization's policy committee and its advisory committee for women's rights.

(Reporting by David Bailey; Editing by Paul Simao)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- Rhode Island lawmakers have put off a vote on legislation that would stop employers or higher education officials from demanding access to a person's Facebook or Twitter accounts.

The House was scheduled to vote Wednesday but decided to wait to allow for more work on the legislation.

The measure is sponsored by Rep. Brian Patrick Kennedy. Kennedy says he wants to prevent employers or school coaches from requiring access to a person's social media accounts as a condition of their employment or enrollment.

The bill would prohibit employers and college officials from requiring that an employee or student add them as a social media contact. It would also stop them from demanding a student or employee's login information.

California already has a similar law.

LONDON (Reuters) - The cost of protecting Scottish savers would prove difficult to bear if the country broke away from the rest of the UK, a study by the Treasury said on Monday.

The findings come in the latest paper from the British government on how independence would impact the country. On Sunday the Treasury said an independent Scotland would have a huge financial sector relative to its economy, leaving it vulnerable to a Cyprus-style banking crisis.

Existing schemes to provide a deposit guarantee to British savers and protect pension payouts would not cover Scotland if its voters decide to break away from the UK in a referendum due to be held next September, the Treasury said on Monday.

"Arrangements that protect UK savers from financial shocks could be difficult and expensive to maintain in an independent Scotland," the report said.

The UK currently guarantees bank deposits up to 85,000 pounds ($129,100), paid for by a levy on its financial sector. However the likely structure of the Scottish banking industry would prove less suited to such a system.

"The retail deposit market in a separate Scotland would be dominated by only two large banks and, if one of these were to fail, the costs for compensating the depositors would fall almost entirely on the one remaining bank," a Treasury statement accompanying the report said.

The Scottish National Party which controls Scotland's devolved government and is behind the independence campaign has dismissed the Treasury report and is due to issue its own study on Tuesday, highlighting the benefits of a split from Britain. ($1 = 0.6582 British pounds)

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

But experts say that is exactly what a dog owner should do: nothing.

"The human-animal bond is no joke. Most pet owners are very attached to their pets," said Dr. Lynn Miller, a veterinarian who runs the animal clinic at Travis Air Force Base, north of San Francisco. "But you're not going to save your dog by risking your own life. It does your dog no favors in the end if he comes back and you're dead. Then what is he going to do?"

Five people have died in attempted dog rescues in Northern California since November, said Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Pamela Boehland, based in Alameda, Calif. A couple of months ago, Boehland teamed up with the National Park Service and the East Bay SPCA on a campaign to keep people on dry land if their dogs get caught up in the surf.

The average dog is a better swimmer than the average human. Dogs such as Labrador retrievers, German shepherds and pit bull terriers are built like boats, the vet said. Their heads are above water, they have a low center of gravity, they have four legs for propulsion, their lungs have a higher capacity than a human's, their fur keeps them warm in cold water and many have waterproof undercoats and some dog breeds have webbed feet.

Using their namesake swim stroke, dogs can find their way back to shore using currents and their fight-or flight-instinct, Miller said.

Dogs are single-minded, focusing on finding safety, while humans panic or become distracted, Miller said. Owners who try to make a rescue also may go into shock from the cold water, try to fight the current and get tumbled around, or tire easily, she said.

People also don't think about what will happen if they do follow a dog and manage to reach it alive, Miller said.

"A Coast Guard dude in a boat's got a better chance of snatching him up than you do of swimming out and grabbing him and hauling him back. Fifty pounds of wet dog is absolutely no fun to drag anywhere, much less back to shore," Miller said. "You sure can't put him on your back."

Currents might cause a dog to come out of the water some distance from the spot where it went into the sea, so a microchip and collar with identification can speed up a reunion, said Allison Lindquist, president of the East Bay Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

The recent California deaths occurred during sunnier weather, when seas were churned up by storms from Alaska. But such storms, with their sneaker or rogue waves, are possible any time of the year, especially when seasons change, Lindquist said.

In Southern California, where pleasant weather year-round draws visitors to the shore, many patrolled beaches do not allow dogs. That includes Los Angeles County, home to famous beaches in Malibu and Venice, said Dan Murphy, an ocean lifeguard specialist.

Some breeds, Miller said, shouldn't be on a beach without a life vest. Those include pugs, bulldogs and others that "can barely breathe when they are walking;" dachshunds and corgis with legs too short to swim; and Chihuahuas and other toy dogs, Boehland said.

It is rare that a dog will be swept away by a rip current, but lifeguards' message to pet owners is the same as Boehland's, Murphy said.

"They should let a lifeguard know and if we have personnel available, we will attempt a rescue. Upon reaching the dogs, they are usually more than happy to climb aboard our rescue board or Baywatch rescue boat," he said.

"If you're not a trained rescue person, you might be doing more harm than good," added Petty Officer 3rd Class Ross Ruddell, based in Boston.

Boehland said that sometimes, even trained officers can make that mistake, citing the example of a Coast Guard officer who died four or five years ago while trying to rescue her dog.

"Everyone is susceptible. The Pacific Ocean is cold and can be cruel," she said.