The world's biggest collider hopes to create a smorgasbord of exotic particles, from the so-called God particle to dark matter and maybe even miniature black holes. John Borland goes to the edge of theory.  Nov 30, 2006 | 2:00 AM

  Take a photo tour of mankind's most ambitious physics experiment ever.  Nov 30, 2006 | 2:00 AM

  GENEVA -- The elevator buttons in front of me, hand-labeled in black marker, speak volumes: "Sky," says one, the other, "Hell."

Sky is the Swiss-French border, pastoral Geneva countryside in the shadow of soaring Alpine mountains. Hell is "The Machine" -- a 16.8-mile underground ring where, in almost precisely a year, superconducting magnets will begin accelerating atomic particles to within a hairsbreadth of the speed of light, and smash them into each other.

The resulting explosions, though tiny, will be of incredibly high energy, replicating conditions just microseconds after the big bang. Scientists expect the resulting debris to help push our understanding of the universe's ingredients and origins to a new level.

"We're all hoping we find something that breaks the field wide open," said University of Pennsylvania physicist Nigel Lockyer. "The word 'revolution' is used."[Wired News: Top Stories]
10:39:56 AM    

The Australian Local Government Association [ALGA]released it's highly valuable State of the Regions Report yesterday, 27th November.

The survey of Australia's 64 regions is commissioned annually by the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) from National Economics. This is the 9th survey undertaken by National Economics.

Editors Note: The Central Ranges LLEN Board commissioned National Economics in 2002 and 2004 to produce the CRLLEN Environmental Scan. A document and data set that has been highly valued by planners across our region. An enhanced scan of the LLEN region will be published in 2007.

The 2006 State of the Regions survey is set against a backdrop of accelerating of population growth in the 'resource zones' and a ten-year land boom that saw land values triple between 1996 and 2005 creating a housing affordability crisis for renters and first home buyers.

Despite improvements in broadband usage, the lack of connectivity in parts of regional Australia translates to an inability to attract new industry and well trained productive workers. Lower land costs make these regions attractive to low-income earners, fixed-income retired or semi-retired households.

Regions with higher concentrations of low and fixed income earners tend to be less attractive to young people and skilled workers which further reduces the skills base and accelerates the loss of skills and critical mass for improved connectivity.

The key to reversing this vicious cycle is to reverse the flow of skills and improve connectivity - both transport and communication - between relatively disadvantaged regions and successful regions as well as international markets. The report says Australia's local government areas could resemble California's Silicon Valley, given a boost to regional innovation, and mentions the Bendigo Community Telco as an example.

The report paints a picture of regions and local communities fighting back by innovating and generating investment. It shows that:

• Improved employment conditions in rural regions are encouraging greater levels of working age migration to some rural regions
• The baby bounce continues in core metro and lifestyle regions
• Local communities can take action to improve the speed and coverage of their internet services [Note: See our Broadband Broker Project]
• High productivity regions are ageing relatively slowly
• The capacity to innovate depends on knowledge networks at the regional level
• Australia's major centres are forming innovation clusters that attract high tech start ups
• The land boom in Australia increased the self-perceived wealth of households across the nation

The report praises the Australian Government's major broadband initiative - Broadband Connect and Clever Networks - which will have flow-on benefits and shows that much of the current investment in upgrading broadband services focused on upgrading existing exchanges in successful regions to higher bandwidths that provide higher speeds.

The report found that Australia's most successful regions, when measured by the number of patents per 100,000 population and high tech start-ups, are still the major cities, particularly Sydney, and Melbourne.

It is evident that the major centres, with their internationally networked businesses, universities and research centres attract more firms, and the impact of this is that dense clusters of activity create a higher level of patent applications.

Municipalities that are (financially) smaller or (geographically) larger face additional disadvantage due to longer travel times and scale. The report finds that the quality of service each dollar can purchase can vary considerably between municipalities.

The resources necessary to give disadvantaged councils a better chance to play a more effective role in improving economic performance outcomes will in the main have to come from grants or other revenue enhancing measures.

Regarding council infrastructure, the report estimates that $2.3 billion in extra money is needed to bring resource-poor local government regions infrastructure up to the general standard. On the issue of road finance, the report advocates a move to road finance through user charges with council rates only paying for maintaining local access roads.

I highly commend this report to all LLEN members and those community members that have an interest and stake in sustainable regional development.

[Source: ALGA]

Related Links

• Australian Local Government Association
• National Institute of Economic and Industry Research
• CRLLEN Environmental Scan
• Bendigo Community Telco
• CRLLEN Community Broadband Broker
• Broadband Connect
• Clever Networks
• State of the Regions Report

8:26:55 AM