From the Stacks: This Week’s Odd Science News

September 26th, 2008 Central Archivist Posted in Commentary, News | 1 Comment »

This week China prepared to put three “taikonauts” into orbit to perform a spacewalk.  Evidently, the Chinese were so confident in the success of the mission they issued a press release that included dialog from the mission… before the launch actually took place.  One might be tempted to make a quip about Chinese quality control, if it weren’t for the tragic scandal involving milk and milk products (including baby formula) unfolding in that country at the moment.

The New Zealanders who worried it was The End Of The World As We Know It got a temporary reprieve when CERN’s Large Hadron Collider suffered a helium leak this week, shutting down its operation until next Spring.  Evidently, a quarter of the Kiwis surveyed were worried the LHC would create a planet-devouring micro black hole.  No worries, mates.  If a micro black hole was created (extremely unlikely), it would evaporate almost immediately.

One of our contributors sent me an interesting link on X-ray art:

Swiss pilot and daredevil Yves Rossy flew across the English Channel in just under 10 minutes this week.  No big deal, you say?  Well, you see Rossy made the flight using a jet-propelled wing strapped to his back.  Once he reached England, he deployed a parachute and landed somewhat safely.