“In what can only be considered a bizarre court case, a former nuclear safety officer and others are suing the U.S. Department of Energy, Fermilab, the National Science Foundation and CERN to stop the use of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) until its safety is reassessed. The plaintiffs cite three possible ‘doomsday‘ scenarios which might occur if the LHC becomes operational: the creation of microscopic black holes which would grow and swallow matter, the creation of strangelets which, if they touch other matter, would convert that matter into strangelets or the creation of magnetic monopoles which could start a chain reaction and convert atoms to other forms of matter. CERN will hold a public open house meeting on April 6 with word having been spread to some researchers to be prepared to answer questions on microscopic black holes and strangelets if asked.”

• Slashdot | Large Hadron Collider Sparks ‘Doomsday’ Lawsuit

Just found a great review of different visualization tools for communities.

Visualization is a technique to graphically represent sets of data. When data is large or abstract, visualization can help make the data easier to read or understand. There are visualization tools for search, music, networks, online communities, and almost anything else you can think of. Whether you want a desktop application or a web-based tool, there are many specific tools are available on the web that let you visualize all kinds of data.

Also check out Visual Complexity for a huge source of visualized data candy

• The Best Tools for Visualization - ReadWriteWeb
• Visual Complexity

I have always found the nature of musical tones interesting; this interest just increased! - We have a lot to learn from studying the maths and nature of waves in general, and applying the science to music might just be one of the greatest ways to do this. Go go string-theory!!

An anonymous slashdot reader notes a Time.com profile of Princeton University music theorist Dmitri Tymoczko, who has applied some string-theory math to the study of music and found that all possible chordal music can be represented in a higher-dimensional space. His research was published last year in Science — it was the first paper on music theory they ever ran. The paper and background material, including movies, can be viewed at Tymoczko’s site.

• Time.com - The Geometry of Music
• Dmitri Tymoczko