Children of the Atom No Longer.

“‘There is enormous angst in the field,’ said Michael S. Turner, a physicist and cosmologist…After canceling the Superconducting Super Collider, which would have been the world’s most powerful physics machine, in 1993, and shutting down Fermilab’s Tevatron in 2011, the United States no longer owns the tool of choice in physics, a particle collider.”

As CERN in Switzerland becomes the new frontier in particle discoveries, physicists worry the United States is falling behind. “How such efforts will fare in this age of sequestration and federal cutbacks is unknown, he admitted, but particle physics has produced important spinoffs into medicine, including imaging devices and beams to treat cancer, and in materials science.”

It Starts Young.

“Sources indicated that upon seeing the balloon disappear behind a line of trees, Tremont began to grapple for the first time with the same feelings of irreversible loss and guilt that will eventually prevent him from enjoying activities he once loved and cause him to become utterly despondent in the face of a seemingly hostile world.”

Via The Onion, Child Who Just Lost Balloon Begins Lifelong Battle With Depression. “‘Come back,’ added the toddler who will never feel entirely happy or normal again.”

And in related news and in honor of the impending Snowquester: Winter Storm Rocky Expected To Hit Kevin Hodges Of Joliet, IL Hardest After The Year He’s Had. “He looks like a real sad piece of s**t. Stay warm out there, Jordan.”