Balky Collider Offline Into '09

A serious malfunction, and the necessarily slow progress of repairs, will keep the Large Hadron Collider from starting its first experiments until spring, the Times reports. A major problem Friday shut down the European atom-smasher, and officials said the heating, repair and recooling of the giant magnets would take 2 months. But scheduled winter maintenance will intervene, effectively shuttering the huge experiment into 2009. (More CERN stories.)