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Thursday, September 11, 2008

Big Bang experiment marred by suicide

WOW! .......That's all I can say....wow.

New Delhi - An Indian teenage girl killed herself because she feared that a massive experiment to re-create the birth of the Universe would herald the end of the world, reports said on Thursday.

Chayya Lal, 16, from the central state of Madhya Pradesh, committed suicide after watching television reports on how the particle-smashing test in Geneva could bring about doomsday, Indian newspapers reported.

She swallowed unidentified tablets on Tuesday and was rushed to hospital, but doctors were unable to save her.

Chayya's parents said she had spoken of her fears about the "Big Bang" experiment.

"Chayya had asked me a number of times whether the world would end as they were saying on television," her father Bihari told the Hindustan Times.

"We tried to divert her attention and told her not to worry about any great disaster," the Mail Today quoted him as saying.

The Mail said the local police inspector had raised doubts about the reasons for Chayya's death and had vowed to investigate.

The start of the underground test on Wednesday was hailed a success after the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) designed to expose the secrets of the cosmos swung into action.

Scientists behind the project had earlier dismissed fears that it could create either a "black hole" whose super-gravity would swallow the Earth, or a theoretical particle called a strangelet that would turn the planet to goo.

When the machine is fully operational, scientists hope to fleetingly replicate conditions at the "Big Bang" that created the Universe 13.7-billion years ago. - Sapa-AFP

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