m. c. de marco

Fox News reports that the Large Hadron Collider may suck us into that planet-eating black hole after all:

“We conclude that … the growth of black holes to catastrophic size does not seem possible. Nonetheless, it remains true that the expected decay times are much longer (and possibly >> 1 second) than is typically predicted by other models,”

Via Tor.com: you can nuke your neighborhood at Ground Zero, an unholy marriage of Google Maps and nuclear weapons. For various kilotonnages, the map shows which neighborhoods will be depopulated and which will get off easy with 2nd degree burns. The asteroid impact option especially is not to be missed.

Technovelgy speculates on time-traveling tinkerers as a possible cause of the Large Hadron Collider’s recent malfunction. Somehow or other our imminent death by planet-sucking black hole has been postponed until the spring, leaving us all plenty of time to do those last-minute things that a species should do before meeting its Maker.

If you look quickly, you may see Google being sucked into the planet-eating black hole created by the Large Hadron Collider today.

Via GeekPress: LiveScience explains the bizarre properties of glass that make its traffic jam of atoms neither a liquid nor a solid.

In the 1950s, Sir Charles Frank in the Physics Department at Bristol suggested that the arrangement of the “jam” should form what is known as an icosahedron, but at the time he was unable to prove it.

Via a mailing list: The Santa Fe New Mexican’s obituary for Robert Bussard (father of the Bussard Ramjet), who passed away this October, focuses on his work with the Tokamak and Polywell:

Bussard’s idea is to convert hydrogen and boron, a widely available material, directly into electricity, producing helium as the only waste product.

Two years ago, just as his federal funding was running out, Bussard believed he had achieved a “breakthrough.”

I had heard about the physicist raising money for time-travel experiments, but it wasn’t until I saw this article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that I realized the fundraising physicist was in fact John Cramer, frequent Analog contributor and author of the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics. See the end of the Seattle PI article for how to contribute research funds.