next http://

Time-traveling bosons can try as hard as they want, but the Large Hadron Collider’s real Achilles’ Heel?  Bread.  And birds,  apparently.

A bird dropping a piece of bread onto outdoor machinery has been blamed for a technical fault at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) this week which saw significant overheating on 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 safety detectors would have shut down the machine.

I admit there are some eventualities you just can’t plan for, but come on!  How are you going to destroy the world if you’re thwarted by bread?!  I mean… no.

(via Universe Today, Bread Dropped By Bird Causes Problems for LHC.)

NASA is at it again. Just days after their questionable logic surrounding the Mars rover Opportunity, they are now reporting that there may be an ice volcano on Saturn’s moon Titan. Slow down there, NASA! This isn’t an episode of Star Trek, this is a little thing we call reality. You can’t just make up words like “cryovolcanic” and expect us to accept it. You can’t have an ice volcano, either. The word “volcano” derives from the Roman god of fire Vulcan. Hey, it’s another Star Trek connection! Imagine that! And besides, we already have a name for molten ice. It’s called “water.” Look scientists, we know that you’re smart. You don’t have to come up with crazy discoveries every week to keep us interested in space. Now, don’t get back to us until you find moon whales swimming in the “molten ice” under Titan’s surface.

Ice volcano: suprisingly similar to a normal volcano tinted blue.

Way over 50 fast. Thanks to the dreadfully named Mag-beam Propulsion, we’re talking 11.7 km/s (that’s 26,172 mph for those playing at home), at which speed a round trip vacation for three to Mars would last only 90 cozy (cramped) days and 90 luxurious (still cramped) nights. And I guess however long they decide to look at rocks and play golf once they get there.

You could go to Jupiter, but why? Jovians are very rude to tourists. Also, you would die.

With all of this talk of Mars, though, people are failing to look at the smaller picture. There’s a very nice planet named Venus a mere 26 million miles away, half the distance to Mars. At the proposed speed of the Mag-beam whatsit, a round trip to Venus would only take a month and a half! Granted, the surface temperature is 740 Kelvins (hot enough to melt lead), the surface pressure is 90 atmospheres (strong enough to crush lead), and the air is full of sulfuric acid (sulfuric enough to… really annoy lead), so that may not work out so well. Let’s think smaller still.

I hate to burst your moon bubble, Stanton A. Coblentz.

The moon. We haven’t been there in a while. We haven’t called in years. What, are we too good for the moon? Well no more! The moon is a mere 240,000ish miles away. Traveling just over 26 thousand miles per hour, we could put an intrepid group of moonologists on the surface of our favorite orbit-buddy in nine hours!! That’s faster than a non-stop plane trip from San Diego to London!! Is my increased use of italics and exclimation marks getting my point across?! It’s the moon, people! Not to be confused with “the moon people” which, sadly, do not exist. I suppose the reason we haven’t gone back to the moon is probably the lack of moon people. That and it’s unspeakably dull. Let’s work with this London idea.

Let’s say I live in San Diego. I set up my magical beam propulsion system, and have my friend Tony set another up somewhere in London. I hop in, hit play, and I’m off to England, and all the fog I can eat! Time for some math. If I am moving at 34 times the speed of sound, and London is about 5500 miles away, how long ’til I get there? Twelve minutes. That’s all! If you weren’t totally blown away by the answer, see me after class. I could be playing cricket and dining on bangers and mash on my lunch break, without missing a minute of work! This is what science is all about. Too bad all of the “scientists” are busy trying to figure out how to play golf on Mars.