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Beech Marten Puts LHC On ‘Paws’

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been shut down by a wayward beech marten. The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) released a weekly report on Friday blaming a hungry beech marten for the shut-down of LHC in Geneva. The furry animal made its way into the world’s most powerful particle accelerator and caused a short circuit.  Sputnik reports: MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The fouine appears to have found its way into an LHC transformer where it gnawed through the wiring, causing a “severe electrical perturbation.” “Short circuit caused by fouine on 66kV transformer… Transformer connections damaged,” CERN’s report announced. The world’s largest particle smasher went offline at around 5:30 a.m. local time (03:30 GMT) and is still being repaired. The unfortunate marten did not survive the electric shock. “Not the best week for LHC!” the CERN report admitted. Earlier, it suffered a vacuum leak at the second-largest machine in the accelerator, which caused several particle beams to stop, as well as a glitch at some of the magnets.