Various: The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), based at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva, Switzerland has suffered a serious setback with the failure of a crucial 43-foot quadrupole, focussing magnet for the machine. The magnet broke during tests last week with a large bang. Reports are available from News@Nature, Courier News, ABC Australia, BBC The magnet, developed by Fermilab failed due to a design flaw says Fermilab’s director, Pier Oddone. We “took a pratfall on the world’s stage,” he says. No one was hurt during the test, but the launch date for LHC for mid-2008 is likely to be extended.
The finding that the Saturnian moon may host layers of icy slush instead of a global ocean could change how planetary scientists think about other icy moons as well.
Modeling the shapes of tree branches, neurons, and blood vessels is a thorny problem, but researchers have just discovered that much of the math has already been done.
January 29, 2026 12:52 PM
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