explosions

After 14 years of work and $5.5 billion, the LHC has survived faulty magnets, avian sabotage, and the threat of malevolent time travelers to finally collided its first particles.

Blasts from improvised explosives and RPGs can cause traumatic brain injuries among soldiers, which can leave permanent damage. Sounds like a challenge for the Pentagon's mad science lab DARPA, which has issued a call for a brain freeze device that could stop the after-effects of brain trauma in its tracks, Wired's Danger Room reports.

Turn up your sound and chemist Gerard Harbison will explain it all. The tiny white thing sitting in front of the orange water balloon contains a mere 1/60th of an ounce of triacetone triperoxide (TATP), the chosen detonator of would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid. (Note: TATP is still explosive when it's wet, so it's probably one of the reasons for the TSA's draconian rules about liquids.)

Add a 9-volt battery and KABOOM.

But there's good news.