WHO'S DOWN WITH LHC? (YEAH YOU KNOW ME)

From Scientific American's website: "You know a science experiment has arrived when a rap song extolling its virtues just hit YouTube. After 14 years, CERN, the European particle physics lab near Geneva, is getting ready to switch on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), designed to seek out new particles including the long-awaited Higgs boson and the possible source of dark matter as well as study the differences between matter and antimatter. The lab says it plans to send the first particles through the LHC's 17-mile- (27-kilometer-) diameter ring in early September and gradually bring it up to full speed over two months.

In honor of the impending start-up, Alpinekat, aka Kate McAlpine, a science writer for CERN, has produced a five-minute rap video starring herself and friends dancing in the bowels of the machine. McAlpine's rap, written during her 40-minute bus commute from Geneva to CERN, gives a rhythmic tour of the mysteries of modern physics and the workings of the LHC, noting that "the things that it discovers will rock you in the head."

Alpinekat: Large Hadron Rap (mp3)
Alpinekat: Large Hadron Rap (video)

Quite a funky tune, actually. This page also features the lyrics, and an acapella version for you remixers/masher-uppers.

This is actually not the first time CERN's musical side has been featured here. Two years ago, we wrote about Les Horribles Cernettes, "The First Band on the Web."