Officials at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced on Tuesday that the world’s biggest physics experiments will be on hold until April. This comes as result of recent large, unexpected helium leak into a sector of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

Earlier this month CERN had its first successful test run of the LHC by sending a beam of protons clockwise through a 17 mile ring making up the system. The next steps were to send the proton beam counter-clockwise through the LHC, and then eventually …

In what is probably the biggest physics experiment in history, today marks the first successful test of the Large Hadron Collidor in Geneva by sending a beam of protons through the the entire underground ring that makes up the world’s largest particle collider. The beam sent through travels through the 17 mile underground ring and nearly the speed of light and can make 11,000 laps through the tube every second.

Officials with CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) dubbed the test a success today and the next step will be …

According to the Space Adventures tourism company out of Virginia, Sergy Brin, cofounder of Google, has put a $5 million deposit down for a vacation in space aboard a Russian spacecraft. The total trip will cost $35 million dollars and the launch date is scheduled for sometime in 2011.

Brin joins a small number of elite individuals who have both the desire to travel into space and more importantly the deep pockets to make it happen. Richard Garriott’s trip with Space Adventures is still coming up this fall. Brin’s $5 million deposit also makes him the founding member of a new Space Adventure club called the Orbital Mission Explorers Circle. The membership appears to work something like a vacation timeshare, but for space. Brin and any other new members that join get preferential options to the mission seats or can sell the seat to another space traveler if there schedule just doesn’t allow for traveling to space that day.

After over three years of direct planning and ten months of traveling through space, NASA’s Phoenix Mars spacecraft today sent back signals that it has made a safe landing on the surface of Mars. The Phoenix spacecraft appears to have hit the intended target in the icy area of Mars’ arctic circle.

Signals sent from Phoenix were delayed by 15 minutes as they were routed through the Odyssey satellite currently orbiting Mars and back to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Earth which caused the celebrations of steps of the landings to take place shortly after they actually happened on Mars.

The Star Trek Tricorder can tell you whether a rock has certain minerals in it, if there’s toxic gas in the air, etc. And if you point it at a girl, it will tell you that there is no way in hell she is going to get with you. This tricorder is made from the original pattern used to create the props, and made of die-cast metal and plastic to give you that perfect future look and feel.

They are a limited edition of 2,000 pieces, and include a display case and certificate of authenticity. If you needed further proof that this is not your average Tricorder, just look at the price. The Star Trek Mark IX Science Tricorder Replica is $349.99.

The University of Melbourne announced on Friday a new technology they are calling “GiFi”, which promises some serious game-changing wireless transfer speeds for all types of consumer gadgets. The tiny silicon chip invented by professor Stan Skafidas is able to move data through the air as fast as 5 gigabits per second at a distance of just over 30 feet.

This short-range wireless technology would potentially be a competitor or more than likely a replacement for WiFi, and things like Bluetooth might want to look out as well. The transfer speeds combined with the constantly increased storage capacities of small handheld devices could really take media down some new avenues as well. The Age newspaper uses an example of transferring a high-definition movie from a kiosk at a store to your mobile phone in seconds. Then that same movie can be transferred just as quickly from the phone to your home computer or entertainment system to watch.

Some scientists from the U.S. and Canada have teamed up to create a new knee brace that generates electricity from your steps. The brace takes advantage of the stop energy that occurs after swinging the knee forward which would otherwise dissipate as heat, much like braking on an electric or hybrid car.

According to the initial studies on the 3.5 pound prototype, a person walking at 2.2 mph was able to create around 5 watts of electricity while wearing a brace on each leg. The researchers state that this device can generate enough electricity to power as many as 10 cell phones, or possibly a small laptop. Some practical future applications include using the knee-mounted generator for campers or soldiers who are not near electricity to power up GPS devices or satellite phones.