Large Hadron Collider Physicist Linked to Al Qaeda

Okay just for a minute, stop yakking about Obama winning the Nobel lottery, and let’s talk some real news. Real scary news.

An unnamed French scientist was arrested Thursday, suspected of ties to terrorism. The scientist was a contractor working with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) on the Large Hadron Collider, the largest particle accelerator ever built, which in theory has the potential to create small black holes or equally world destroying strangelets.

“His work did not bring him into contact with anything that could be used for terrorism,” CERN said in a statement. “CERN is a particle physics research laboratory whose research addresses fundamental questions about the universe. None of our research has potential for military application, and all our results are published openly in the public domain.”

The scientist is suspected of being in contact with members of Al Qaeda involved in the North African Sunni terrorist group Islamic Maghreb, any ally of Al Qaeda.

While the suspected terrorist may not have had the intention or means of destroying the world, Gizmodo commenters are wondering if he had anything to do with the sudden breakdown of the LHC last year. An interesting hypothesis, but nothing more than speculation at this point.

Regardless, what’s really scary here is that a possible terrorist was able to work with CERN in the first place. This is a huge security failure, and a story that needs more attention.