Enrich

You can get out of your bunkers now: I hear that the first test run at the LHC was a smashing success. The actual smashing happens later this year, so you may want to keep an eye on any black holes originating from Europe. If you’re into big explosions and that (I’m looking at you Dr. Horrible), maybe you should consider a career in Quantum Physics.

This leaves me wondering about the current (and future) state of science in the US: the LHC was built and mostly funded by European countries. The lab has attracted over 1000 US scientists, who according to previous linked Globe and Mail article, ‘feel strongly that the United States is no longer a place to practise massive-scale experiments’. You may wonder if this has to do with the last 8 years of the Bush administration, where science didn’t seem to be of importance. That is, unless you count the president’s vision for ‘the moon and Mars’ as a scientific milestone.