Links for 2009-08-05

"Many of the magnets meant to whiz high-energy subatomic particles around a 17-mile underground racetrack have mysteriously lost their ability to operate at high energies.

Some physicists are deserting the European project, at least temporarily, to work at a smaller, rival machine across the ocean.

After 15 years and $9 billion, and a showy "switch-on" ceremony last September, the Large Hadron Collider, the giant particle accelerator outside Geneva, has to yet collide any particles at all. "

"Dr. SkySkull here, of skullsinthestars, your new "editor-at-large" for a collection of the "less traveled" topics here at ResearchBlogging.org. I'll be here every Monday highlighting some of the posts which have caught my eye over the past week.

For our first week, we look at posts that take us from the edge of the Solar System to the ecology of the Earth right down to the atomic scale:"

"It is interesting and eerie how many of the Facebook "gifts"* for academics are familiar elements of my life, even though the gifts seem to have been created by a liberal arts professor. Here is a self-graded summer homework assignment: look at the array of gifts listed below and give yourself 1 point (NO EXTRA CREDIT, but some substitutions allowed) for each one that is or has been an actual element of your experience with academe."

No matter how bad your first talk was, Jonathan has you beat.