"But Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho contend that scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, have played down the chances that the collider could produce, among other horrors, a tiny black hole, which, they say, could eat the Earth. Or it could spit out something called a 'strangelet' that would convert our planet to a shrunken dense dead lump of something called 'strange matter.'" Wagner and Sancho are suing the Department of Energy, and others, in Federal court to temporarily halt work on a giant particle accelerator outside Geneva until scientists can satisfy them that it, and the universe, will not go BOOM.

"Scientists say that is very unlikely — though they have done some checking just to make sure." Okay, as long as they've done some checking. That was a close one! [NYT]

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