Attention apocalypse crackpots and physics geeks! We (finally) have news on the revised timetable for the world’s (potentially) greatest atom-smasher, the Large Hadron Collider. Get ready, because it’s going to start up in September 2009. Exactly one year later than it was supposed to.

You may recall, loyal reader, that last fall, when we were stressed out by the horrors of the McCain/Palin ticket, certain paranoids were also stressed out by (silly) rumors that the LHC might create a black hole that could swallow Switzerland. Varius mentioned the controversy early on, prompting me to attempt to calm things down again. Then, just when we were getting used to the idea, an unfortunate leak of helium superfluid knocked the entire system out of commission for the duration of the winter, if not longer.

It seems that we’re now on the way to being back in business, with some useful new fail-safes thrown in. According to a report filed yesterday by New Scientist,

“CERN is now installing an early-warning system to detect nano-ohm rises in resistance in the superconducting wires that power the LHC’s bending magnets. It is also fitting all magnets with additional pressure relief valves to reduce collateral damage in case of a similar incident. Half of the valves will be in place this year.”

And that’s good news, because, as has been stated elsewhere, the least little malfunction causes the whole fucking thing to shut down. So take heart, LHC fans! All that cool stuff that was supposed to happen with gravitons and rolled-up dimensions and Higgs boson particles can all still happen. Just push all your hopes and dreams back a year. We’ll see you in September.