Watch The End Of The World Live!

Scientists today in a 17-mile underground tunnel at the border of France and Switzerland cranked up an atom smasher that some believe will create a black hole that will devour the Earth.

Here's a live broadcast:

http://webcast.cern.ch/index.html

The purpose is to simulate The Big Bang - which might not be such a great idea, according to some folks - and unlock some secrets of the universe, Ford Park and Crockett Street not included.

Here's some more on it here:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/09/10/lhc.collider/index.html

John Huth, a Harvard University physics professor, concurred that the thing could create small black holes. Black holes in space have gravity so strong that not even light can escape.

But Huth said any black hole the particle smasher creates would take quite a while to eat the Earth.

"The gravitational force is so weak that you'd have to wait many, many, many, many, many lifetimes of the universe before one of these things could [get] big enough to even get close to being a problem," Huth said.

Well, that's comforting, but maybe we'd be better off if they took two of the scientists and smashed them together instead.