It's the End of the World as We Know It...

And just in time because I have a Molecular Biology test next Thursday! What's all this fuss about the end of the world you're asking?

Tomorrow the CERN research center located on the Franco-Swiss border is going to fire up the Large Hadron Super Collider and attempt to recreate the conditions of the big bang here on Earth. This machine is the brain child of more than 8,000 physicists from over 85 countries!

This will be remarkable in that the LHC is the largest and highest energy particle accelerator ever built by mankind. And what does that mean? Well among other things it is hoped to reveal to scientists a particle called the Higgs boson aka the "God Particle" There are those who believe that if this particle exists and can be observed it may change some of the laws of physics and explain why some of our theories don't quite mach up with what we have observed.

There are also those who believe that it will result in the creation of a black hole which will then proceed to swallow up the entire planet and it's hapless inhabitants along with it. British astronomer Martin Rees puts our odds of being crushed in the belly of a black hole tomorrow at 1 in 50 million...

So if we do arise tomorrow in a slightly more compressed state of matter, it's been a pleasure! I for one intend to spend my last few hours planted in front of SPORE...