LHC

The world's most powerful particle accelerator will go live again in June at the earliest, after a shutdown in September.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which runs the Large Hadron Collider, previously suggested that the apparatus would be restarted in April, following maintenance. On Monday, however, it emerged that June would be the earliest possible date for operations to resume fully. It also became apparent that the cost of the repairs alone could be as high as $16 million.

The LHC is housed in a 17-mile-long circular tunnel nestled beneath the Swiss-French border in the Alps. It … Read more

Few CIOs could claim to have helped recreate the Big Bang at work.

But as head of IT at CERN, Wolfgang von Rueden plays a key role in the nuclear research lab's quest to unravel the nature of the universe by colliding particles at 99 percent the speed of light.

Von Rueden and his team provide the computing backbone that supports the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator's hunt for the elusive Higgs Boson--dubbed the "God particle"--invisible dark matter, and even evidence of extra dimensions.

Having joined the lab in Geneva in 1975, von Rueden … Read more

In addition to a legacy of adventure and entrepreneurship, Steve Fossett leaves behind a top secret project he'd been working on. He had bought a highly advanced underwater submersible he hoped would take him to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, lower than any point on Earth humans have gone. Reporter Daniel Terdiman joins today's podcast to talk about the project and where it goes from here.

Apple is strongly denying a rumor posted on CNN's iReport page that Steve Jobs suffered a heart attack this morning. iReport is a citizen journalism section of CNN, where people … Read more

The Large Hadron Collider will be turned on again at the beginning of April, according to Robert Aymar, CERN's director general.

The LHC, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, was built by the European nuclear-research organization to conduct experiments to test fundamental physics theories and to search for important new science such as the Higgs Boson.

The particle beam machine, located at the border between France and Switzerland, was first powered up on September 10, but the experiment had to be closed down on September 19 after a malfunction caused a leak of liquid helium.

Aymar said that … Read more

You can put Kate McAlpine in a giant particle accelerator 300 feet underground. You can even put her in a rap video. Just don't put her in a box.

That's a tenet the 23-year-old Michigan native--who recently climbed the YouTube charts with a rap video on the Large Hadron Collider--embraced long ago in choosing a career as a science writer. She tips the hat to her dad, who was annoyed by the results of her career aptitude test in high school that sought to place her in a particular field.

"They're trying to put you … Read more

I bet you think this podcast is about you. Don't you? Don't you!? On today's show, we learn how easy it is to spot a narcissist on Facebook (stay away!), terrible ideas that will criminalize professional eBay sellers and kill eBay even faster than it's killing itself, and how video games might be the only thing that can survive a recession.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

Bill would give retailers power to halt online auctions http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080924-bill-would-give-retailers-power-to-halt-online-auctions.html

Users fail to spot fake pop-ups http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7633402.stm … Read more

Professor Peter Higgs will have to wait at least a few additional seasons to find out whether his long-held theory on how matter has mass is right.

That's because officials announced Tuesday that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which could confirm the existence of a theoretical particle name after Higgs, will remain shut down until at least early spring.

The LHC, the world's largest particle collider, is located in a nearly 17-mile-long circular tunnel along the French-Swiss border about 330 feet underground. Built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (or CERN), it promises to push forward theories … Read more

On today's show, we get schooled about how cell phone 911 works, we school the music industry on its consistently terrible ideas regarding physical formats (seriously? Albums on micro SD cards? Are you kidding us with this?), Obama cools his pro Net neutrality stance, and Japan gets to work on the space elevator. Jason already volunteered to go. He's so brave. We'll miss him.

SanDisk, record labels announce new music format http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10047311-93.html http://www.crn.com/retail/210602962 http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/22/music-on-microsd-i-cant-believe-the-labels-fell-for-this/… Read more

The world's largest particle collider has been shut down for at least two months due to a large helium leak stemming from an incident Friday, officials said.

The Large Hadron Collider is a gigantic particle accelerator located in a nearly 17-mile-long circular tunnel along the French-Swiss border about 330 feet underground. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research, also known as CERN.

The collider was officially launched on September 10 when the first particle beam was successfully sent around the full circuit. On the heels of an earlier malfunction due to a faulty transformer, CERN said … Read more