Bird Drops Bread, LHC Shuts Down

Posted by Miss Cellania in Odd News, Science & Tech on November 5, 2009 at 9:25 pm

You can’t make stuff like this up. A piece of a baguette dropped by a passing bird caused a shutdown at the CERN Large Hadron Collider.

The bird dropped some bread on a section of outdoor machinery, eventually leading to significant over heating in parts of the accelerator. The LHC was not operational at the time of the incident, but the spike produced so much heat that had the beam been on, automatic failsafes would have shut down the machine.

The LHC is scheduled to be reactivated later this month. The bread incident won’t affect those plans. Link -via Boing Boing

 
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Tom Hanks to Turn On Large Hadron Collider

Posted by Miss Cellania in Science & Tech on February 18, 2009 at 1:12 pm

The CERN Large Hadron Collider had to be taken out of commission last September for retooling after helium leaked out and caused £20 million in damage. Who gets to turn on the button to start it up when repairs are finished? Movie star Tom Hanks!

Hanks was approached about the move while filming his latest film Angels and Demons in which he plays a Harvard University academic investigating a plot to annihilate the Vatican with 0.25 grams of antimatter stolen from Cern.

Steve Myers, Cern’s director of accelerators and technology, told Nature News that he gave the actor a tour of the laboratory on February 13 and asked him if he would return for the switch-on, to which the actor agreed.

Cern’s head of communications, James Gillies, confirmed that the facility would be delighted to have Hanks there to restart the collider, which organisers hope will take place in June.

Link -via Gizmodo

Previously: Trouble at the LHC

 
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Large Hadron Collider Photo Gallery

Posted by Robert Birming in Science & Tech on September 10, 2008 at 7:11 am

The Large Hadron Collider has not yet turned the whole Earth into one big lump of goo, as some might fear.

This means we still have the chance to enjoy the LHC photo gallery over at Dvice, containing 30 stunning images from the world’s largest particle accelerator complex.

Link

 
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