Daily Coronavirus Briefing. The LHC underwent upgrade work between 2013 and 2015. According to internal documents, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, a 27-kilometre underground ring used to collide particles at nearly the speed of light, is experiencing some issues. Unfortunately, Marsollier says, scientists will have to wait while workers bring the machine back online. .css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link{color:inherit;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited{color:#696969;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link:hover,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited:hover,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link:focus,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited:focus{color:#B80000;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link::after,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited::after{content:'';position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0;z-index:2;}LHC restart: 'We want to break physics', .css-gw44ni-IconContainer{display:inline-block;height:1em;width:1em;vertical-align:-0.125em;margin-right:0.25em;}playHadron Collider: Inside one of Cern's particle detectors, 360-degree tour of Cern's Large Hadron Collider, Fauci warns of post-Thanksgiving US Covid surge. We Insist: A Timeline Of Protest Music In 2020, a group of children took National Public Radio off the air for over a minute. Stone marten, which met its fate at the Large Hadron Collider, to become part of Rotterdam museum’s exhibition on ill-fated human-animal interactions I t's one of the physics world's most powerful machines but it has taken just a small weasel to put the Large Hadron Collider out of action.. Cern's own report on the incident says that the weasel got into a 66kV transformer. Ashley Buttle/Flickr A spokesman for Cern said that the weasel did not get into the tunnels, just the electrical facilities. He added that while it was, fortunately, not every day that an animal affected the equipment, it was not that surprising as the research facility is in the countryside. "We had electrical problems, and we are pretty sure this was caused by a small animal," says Arnaud Marsollier, head of press for CERN, the organization that runs the $7 billion particle collider in Switzerland. hide caption. Millions of people are returning home following the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. If those other particles exist, they could revolutionize researcher's understanding of everything from the laws of gravity, to quantum mechanics. These sorts of mishaps are not unheard of, says Marsollier. .css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link{color:#3F3F42;}.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited{color:#696969;}.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited{font-weight:bolder;border-bottom:1px solid #BABABA;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link:hover,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited:hover,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link:focus,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited:focus{border-bottom-color:currentcolor;border-bottom-width:2px;color:#B80000;}@supports (text-underline-offset:0.25em){.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited{border-bottom:none;-webkit-text-decoration:underline #BABABA;text-decoration:underline #BABABA;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-skip-ink:none;text-decoration-skip-ink:none;text-underline-offset:0.25em;}.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link:hover,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited:hover,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:link:focus,.css-yidnqd-InlineLink:visited:focus{-webkit-text-decoration-color:currentcolor;text-decoration-color:currentcolor;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:2px;text-decoration-thickness:2px;color:#B80000;}}360-degree tour of Cern's Large Hadron Collider, Large Hadron Collider discovers new pentaquark particle. The transformer connections were damaged. BBC iWonder: What will the Large Hadron Collider discover next? Utah monolith: Has the mysterious metal object disappeared? VideoCoronavirus: How do you vaccinate the world? Of course, small mammals cause problems in all sorts of organizations. Nor are the problems exclusive to the LHC: In 2006, raccoons conducted a "coordinated" attack on a particle accelerator in Illinois. The Large Hadron Collider, a 17-mile superconducting machine designed to smash protons together at close to the speed of light, went offline overnight. Yesterday, a group of children took National Public Radio off the air for over a minute before engineers could restore the broadcast. A small mammal, possibly a weasel, gnawed-through a power cable at the Large Hadron Collider. The Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator at Cern is offline after a short circuit - caused by a weasel. Best known for discovering the Higgs Boson, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's biggest science experiment. Italy's Calabria has two pandemics: Covid and the Mafia, Pogues singer Shane MacGowan to be subtitled in new film about his life, Romain Grosjean: Haas driver suffers burns after huge Bahrain GP crash and fire, Canada bans mass exports of prescription drugs. Arnaud Marsollier told the BBC that it would take a few days to repair the damage caused by the weasel's visit. One weasel went up against the Large Hadron Collider and ended up dead. In 2009 the LHC was taken out by what was suspected to be a bird, though no remains were found. Weasel halts Large Hadron Collider experiments 'Not the best week for LHC!' 1 /1 Weasel halts Large Hadron Collider experiments . Coronavirus: How do you vaccinate the world? © 2020 BBC. CERN Weasel Apparently Shuts Down World's Most Powerful Particle Collider : The Two-Way The Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland is offline, following a run-in with a … Coronavirus: How do you vaccinate the world? The Large Hadron Collider uses superconducting magnets to smash sub-atomic particles together at enormous energies. .css-14iz86j-BoldText{font-weight:bold;}The Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator at Cern is offline after a short circuit - caused by a weasel. "It may be mid-May," he says. The boy who swapped his piano for a gun. hide caption. Researchers discovered the weasel … The unfortunate creature did not survive the encounter with a high-voltage transformer at the site near Geneva in Switzerland. .css-8h1dth-Link{font-family:ReithSans,Helvetica,Arial,freesans,sans-serif;font-weight:700;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;color:#FFFFFF;}.css-8h1dth-Link:hover,.css-8h1dth-Link:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}Read about our approach to external linking. Repairs will take a few days, but getting the machine fully ready to smash might take another week or two. Back in the 1990s a whole bunch of weasels went up against Superconducting Super Collider. Researchers have seen some hints in recent data that other, yet-undiscovered particles might also be generated inside the LHC. A small mammal has sabotaged the world's most powerful scientific instrument. The Higgs is believed to endow other particles with mass, and it is considered to be a cornerstone of the modern theory of particle physics. "We are in the countryside, and of course we have wild animals everywhere." The SSC died, and was reduced a mere hole in the ground in the southern suburbs of Dallas, TX. A small mammal, possibly a weasel, gnawed-through a power cable at the Large Hadron Collider. Engineers investigating the mishap found the charred remains of a furry creature near a gnawed-through power cable. 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