FWIS3

The Large Hadron Collider, a 17-mile superconducting machine designed to smash protons together at close to the speed of light, went offline last night. Engineers investigating the mishap found the charred remains of a furry creature near a gnawed-through power cable.

"We had electrical problems, and we are pretty sure this was caused by a small animal," says Arnaud Marsollier, head of press for CERN, the organization that runs the $7 billion particle collider in Switzerland. Although they had not conducted a thorough analysis of the remains, Marsollier says they believe the creature was "a weasel, probably."

There have been previous incidents, including one in 2009, when a bird is believed to dropped a baguette onto critical electrical systems