The 15 weirdest science stories of 2009

1: The Baguette vs. the LHC

The end of 2009 brought a high note for the Large Hadron Collider, when physicists resumed particle smashing after 14 months of repairs and claimed the world record for highest energy, exceeding 1 trillion electron volts. The circulating beam was a sight for sore eyes among LHC scientists. They’d seen the electrical connection failure that took down the machine in the first place, amplified by theories that spooky signals from the future were canceling out the LHC’s present … because, you know, it’s going to destroy the planet and prevent the future, or something. By the end of the LHC’s downtime even fowl were conspiring against it: A bird dropped a baguette on it, causing overheating.