Breaking some eggs

I'm not quite sure where I read it recently--perhaps in a Cook's Illustrated (the latest issue of which, is the best we received--almost everything is of interest), maybe somewhere else--it was written that cracking eggs on the side of a mixing bowl, which most people do, is not the optimal way. Instead, whoever wrote whatever it is I read, offered the countertop as the best place to smack the egg. While making brinner tonight, I gave it a shot. Low and behold, no shells in the mixing bowl, no egg on the counter (I generally get some rundown from the bowl) except for the 1 that I hit way too hard. Really, quite a better method. I was using rather thin shelled eggs, so it will require more testing to see how it works with thicker shelled brown eggs that we occasionally get.

Speaking of breaking eggs, you might be aware of the Large Hadron Collider being built on the French-Swiss border by a consortium led by European Organization for Nuclear Research, which will smash protons together to replicate the big bang. In the free issue of Harpers that I received, courtesy of The Atlantic (or possibly the Economist, but I doubt it) selling my info to Harper's distributor, there was an extended passage from Luis Sancho, a cosmologist specializing in time theory, that submitted an affidavit to the US District Court in Honolulu in opposition to the project:

Theoretical calculations show that the LHC could produce two kinds of dark matter--black holes and strange, ultradense quark matter--that are extremely dangerous, as both have been theoretically proven to swallow in a chain reaction the entirety of the Earth... The exact probability of a runaway reaction that converts Earth into dark matter is unknown. The minimal risk as calculated by CERN allows for a 1-10% chance of extinguishing Earth... A calculation shows that the LHC experiment would be, technically, the largest holocaust in history. It would also be the biggest environmental crime in history, far more harmful than global warming, as it would mean the destruction of all life-forms on the planet.

That's a big egg to break! And this was news to me, as apparently I missed this topic when it was news/blog fodder a couple of weeks ago. A CS Monitor recap:

"So, will the most ambitious science project in human history end human history? No.
I should say “no, according to scientists working on the LHC.” But the evidence points to a resounding “no.”
A study released last month disassembled the arguments against powering up the collider. The report found “no basis for concerns that [small] black holes from the LHC could pose a risk to Earth on timescales shorter than the Earth’s natural lifetime.” In other words: Yes, it could happen, but chances are the sun will burn out before this collider can have an Earth-ending mishap.
Their reasoning? Slashdot puts it best: “Everything that will be created at the LHC is already being created by cosmic rays. If a black hole created by the LHC is interactive enough to destroy the world within the lifetime of the sun, similar black holes are already being created by cosmic rays.”

No I don't understand the science behind, so I can't clearly say it's alarmism with no really proof. When I read Joanne the passage, she actually laughed--there is a certain "ridiculous" quality to the affidavit. Oddly, it is also one of the more uplifting, least depressing columns/articles/pieces in this particular Harpers. Think about that for second--contemplating world destruction was not the top downer in the issue. In fact, it might not even be in the top 10. Joanne stopped reading before she got this far because it was all so depressing. We opted not to get the subscription (the Index was rather weak as well) although we did get a second issue, the catchy "Why the GOP must die".