Worried that the Large Hadron Collider may open up a black hole here on earth and swallow the planet? You can get the straight story tonight at tonight's Science Café. Details here:

Flandrau: The UA Science Center is holding its next “Science Café” at Cushing Street Bar & Restaurant in downtown Tucson on Tuesday, Feb. 9 at 6:00 p.m. A science café is a casual forum for people to meet and discuss a particular science topic with a UA scientist in the relaxed atmosphere of a local restaurant.

Michael A. Shupe, a University of Arizona professor of physics, will give a short talk entitled, “Simply Smashing: The Large Hadron Collider Ramps Up.” Shupe, a member of the UA’s Large Hadron Collider team, is part of the LHC’s worldwide scientific effort to answer fundamental questions of the universe.

The Large Hadron Collider, the world’s biggest scientific experiment, will zip beams of sub-atomic particles around a 17-mile underground tunnel beneath the border of France and Switzerland. The machine, shut down for the winter, is scheduled to resume operations in March.