Cambridge astrophysicist Martin Rees raised the issue of collider dangers in the same context, when discussing “fatal diseases” as a potential consequence of technology (Rees, Our Final Hour, p. 116). He used both as examples of disasters capable of “destroying civilization,” which led him to pose a basic question: “Should we forgo some kinds of experiments…?” ( p. 117)

In his book “Our Final Hour,” Cambridge astrophysicist Sir Martin Rees wrote, “The obverse of technology’s immense prospects is an escalating variety of potential disasters, not just from malevolent intent but from innocent inadvertence as well. We can conceive of events — albeit unlikely ones — that could cause worldwide epidemics of fatal diseases to which there is no antidote…” (p. 116).

However, a potential antidote to the H5N1 avian flu virus may have been found in research showing that vitamin A can moderate the over-production of TNF-a and other inflammatory cytokines, which the virus induces in what appears to be its lethal mechanism. See: http://www.scienceguardian.com/blog/alert-vitamin-a-is-proba…-shows.htm

The passage by Prof. Rees also pointed out that “physics could be dangerous too. Some experiments are designed to generate conditions more extreme than ever occur naturally. Nobody then knows exactly what will happen,”

The Large Hadron Collider at CERN is currently engaged in colliding lead nuclei in an experiment that its own scientists admit may generate strangelets (see HeavyIonAlert.org). According to Dr. Rees, a “strangelet disaster could transform the entire planet Earth into an inert hyperdense sphere about 100 metres across” (Ib. p. 120–121). He concluded, “We cannot be absolutely sure that strangelets couldn’t lead to a runaway disaster” (p. 125).