CNN HEADLINE : Some fear atom-smasher may swallow Earth

–my 2 favorite things. Atom smashers and earth swallowing predictions. END OF DAYS!
According to the article, “The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some bizarre discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in space, after it is switched on in August. But some critics fear the Large Hadron Collider could exceed physicists’ wildest conjectures: Will it spawn a black hole that could swallow Earth? Or spit out particles that could turn the planet into a hot dead clump?”

– OK. Those are not the best side-effects of an experiment. Couldn’t the earth just get dry-mouth and painful stools?
“‘Obviously, the world will not end when the LHC switches on,’ said project leader Lyn Evans.”
– Thank you project leader. I’m sure you have NO bias on the situation.
“David Francis, a physicist on the collider’s huge ATLAS particle detector, smiled when asked whether he worried about black holes and hypothetical killer particles known as strangelets.
‘If I thought that this was going to happen, I would be well away from here,’ he said.”
– at least David found it amusing. Myself, I could really only get a little further in the article before my brain started hurting. Micro Black Holes are one of the Doomsday scenarios proposed. But those just sound so adorable.
The article ends thusly
“The leafy campus of CERN, a short drive from the shores of Lake Geneva, hardly seems like ground zero for doomsday. And locals don’t seem overly concerned. Thousands attended an open house here this spring.”
– Ah, since the campus is so pretty and there was just an open house it would be impossible for anything bad to happen. Nothing could possibly go wronog. This is EXACTLY how every bad situation starts!

Dear Scientists.
Your weeners are plenty big. Please stop overcompensating.