The Universe’s Origins Is for the Birds

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) may just be the most powerful machine on Earth.

Located at Cern, a particle physics lab near Geneva, Switzerland, its purpose is to mimic the so-called Big Bang that created the universe. So what would it take to bring down the most massive, life-giving force in the universe?

How about a bird? And a baguette.

The Guardian reports that last week, something fell in the machine, causing it to overheat while it was undergoing test runs.

"The person who went to investigate discovered bread and a bird eating the bread," a spokesperson told the Guardian.

This isn’t the first time the Collider has had problems. Just nine days after its much-lauded launch last year, it experienced an electrical failure that caused it to shut down.

But all’s good in the universe again. The machine is up and running in the test phase, and is expected to resume normal operation later this month. When that happens, scientists will go back to the work of proving the existence of the "God particle," which gives the universe mass — and shooing away the birds.

Photo courtesy Mark Hillary via Flickr.