After decades of work, the Large Hadron Collider went live 143 days ago and went down 139 days ago. Its being offline, however, has hardly put an end to speculation over what exactly will happen when the repairs are completed and the switch is flipped on the world’s largest particle accelerator. Scientists from the Universities of Bologna and Alabama recently submitted a paper to Cornelll’s exploring the possibility that those (harmless) microscopic black holes we’d heard so much about could stick around longer than previously believed. No matter that their conclusion was basically, still: “so what? Ain’t gonna do nothin.” News outlets,as SciAm notes, jumped over the story and the anti-LHC kook-contingent resurfaced.

So here’s to you, naysayers and doomsdayers alike. After the jump, a very special episode of “Science of YouTube,” wherein the LHC goes online and the Earth is destroyed. Enjoy!


YouTube footage courtesy of Cyriak Harris, BrainReleaseValve. Many thanks!