The biggest story that never happened

In the last few days of the year, news people's thoughts turn to lists of the top stories of the year -- the historic election, the Wall Street meltdown, and whatever else happened, I can't recall just what. But the biggest story that DIDN'T happen was the Large Hadron Collider, the next generation "atom smasher" that is supposed to find a subatomic particle that will explain the mysteries of the universe. It was turned on Sept. 10, 2008. And promptly broke down. This machine is 14 miles of tunnel beneath the frontier of Switzerland and France. The tunnel is a vaccuum with a temperature near absolute zero. It has magnets to make particles go around in faster and faster circles. What went wrong was that one of the magnets was leaking helium. To fix that they had to slowly raise the tempature until they could go in there and work on it. The restart is scheduled for spring. The good news is that the collider didn't destroy the planet. There is a possibility that is not zero, some physicists say, that the device will create a black hole that will eventually suck the life out of Earth. By the way, this gizmo cost $9 billion. Gee, compared to the Wall Street bailouts, that seems like something of a bargain.... The