Real news, versus the Onion News Network

My students, and readers of this blog (ed: really? there are readers?) know how much I am a fan of The Onion. But, some times, real news items are so outlandish that they confirm that it is only a very fine line between the Onion's satire and the real world itself. Here is one such example, which one would think that The Onion made it up, but, alas, is a real world news:

A teenage girl agreed to have under-age sex because she wanted to lose her virginity before the Large Hadron Collider caused the end of the world, it has been reported.

I would laugh this off, but for the fact that this is a report in the Telegraph, and it is not an April 1st issue either. How unfortunate that scientific illiteracy results in horrible outcomes!

The Telegraph further notes that:

[Police] in Brisbane, Australia believe that the teenage girl was so scared by the doomsday speculation that she agreed to have under-age sex with a boy in their school lavatories.

Her fears came to light after their sex acts were filmed by another boy at the school, with the footage circulated among pupils via their mobile phones.

Police have launched an investigation under child pornography laws, although The Courier-Mail newspaper reported that they did not expect to bring any charges.

Oh boy!

BTW, if you are curious about the status of the Large Hadron Collider, which came to a halt after a great deal of hype about what the scientific knowledge that it would add:

Unfortunately on 19th September a serious fault developed damaging a number of superconducting magnets. The repair will required a long technical intervention which overlaps with the planned winter shutdown. The LHC beam will, therefore, not see beam again before September 2009.

Given that we are already almost at mid-September, ..... I wonder whether the re-start will not be for a while?