Eels Disappearing? Inconceivable!

European Eel Ron Offermans (GNU Free Documentation License)

There must be too many local fishermen out for pleasure cruises at night through eel-infested waters. European eels are in crisis, their numbers mysteriously plummeting in the last decades.

Also in today's links: farting machines, death via LHC and more.

• Russia is planning to deploy floating and submersible nuclear power stations in the Arctic to power drilling operations there and capitalize on what are thought to be vast oil and gas reserves. Environmentalists and polar bears are not too happy.
• A new kind of machine has the potential to both improve fuel cell technology and entertain 12-year-old boys. That's what we call the modern biathlon. The device can transform CO₂ into methane, via little farts; the methane then can power a fuel cell or store electrical energy.
• When flies battle ants, the flies don't necessarily play fair. One trick of the trade: tapping the ant to trigger an automatic regurgitation response.
• The Daily Show gets to the heart of the matter: will the Large Hadron Collider kill us all in our sleep (once it gets up and running again, anyway)?