There's a bit of a debate going on about wether or not the new Hadron Collider will create stranglets, or miniature black holes that may endanger the entire planet! There's actually a lawsuit with the aim of stopping the collider form going into operation this summer, pointing to research that shows a possibility of these mini black holes being created. If this were the case, which is a tiny possibility, a stranglet would form a tiny black hole that would sink towards the center of the earth due to gravity, and it would basically just gobble up everything starting from the inside. I sense a hollywood movie in the works.

I tend to have faith in a large group of international scientists like this, especially because I highly doubt they would intentionally create something that might destroy the world. The fact that the possibility is a reality however, is kind of exciting… Either way, when this goes into operation, it's going to push our knowledge of the behavior of matter much further. Who knows what technologies might spawn from this research, the potential is vast. Can humans make it to a Class 1 civilization?

Take a listen to an interview with one of the researchers below, and remember, if the world might end this summer, live it up!


The Large Hadron Collider/ATLAS at CERN

High energy research facility in Japan. Image from Pingmag Article. Photograph by Joe Nishizawa