Helium & Sulfur Hexafluoride

Quite possibly, the coolest thing ever.

EVER.

Check it out!!

Still Here

No, I don't just mean myself, I'm talking about all of us.

So I guess that means that last night's inaugural proton circuits on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN didn't create a black hole and destroy the Earth.

So much for the "Doomsday Machine" some people were afraid of.

Although, so far, no collisions have occured; they've sent proton beams in both directions, but not simultaneously. So we may still yet wake up to find ourselves sucked into a black hole that popped up in Switzerland. Or worse, as this article points out:

Besides, the random nature of quantum physics means that there is always a minuscule, but nonzero, chance of anything occurring, including that the new collider could spit out man-eating dragons.

Remember, kids, science is scary, scientists are amoral, and the Devil will use it to blow up the world, or at the very least, unleash dragons. So we need Sarah Palin and John McCain – in that order! – to protect us!
</sarcasm>

On that note, these poll results (courtesy of Pharyngula) show the kind of numbers that would make Karl Rove smile; between the extreme and wooden-headed anti-science fiscal reasoning in the top response, to the Christian fundamentalist lunacy of the next top two answers, the far-right Republican demographic is almost fully represented.

Sigh.