Last week, just about everyone I know asked me if a man-made black hole — which are predicted to form in a colossal new atom smasher called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) — might soon squeeze the Earth into the size of a pea. (Now that would be a real blow to the faltering global economy.)

The question stemmed from a New York Times article on how a judge is calling for a more detailed inquiry into the matter.

My first thought was that a mini-black hole would evaporate into cosmic rays, via a process called Hawking radiation, before it could devour our home and the rest of the cosmic block. Experts agree, as SPACE.com learned two years ago.

Even if mini-black holes don’t evaporate, some physicists think ultra-powerful cosmic rays punching into atmospheric molecules on our planet would create them. Yet everything is peachy, despite cosmic rays hitting Earth countless times a day.

Death by a black hole sounds like a particularly exciting way to go out, but it’s not likely to happen to anyone on Earth, and probably never will. The nearest-known black hole is more than 1,600 light-years from us, or about 9,400 trillion miles (15,000 trillion km) away.

Might strangelets, those weird theoretical particles that could render Earth into a lifeless lump like Kurt Vonnegut’s imaginary “ice-nine”, be produced by the LHC? A small minority of physicists think yes, but no evidence yet exists to support the odd matter’s existence.

Google sneaked in a curious line on their homepage today: “Space is the key to a rosier future. Become a Virgle Pioneer.”

The site details Google’s partnership with Virgin, which recently unveiled their SpaceShipTwo design, to build a colony on Mars because “Earth has issues, and it’s time humanity got started on a Plan B.” The main page continues:

So, starting in 2014, Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars.

In its ambitious 100-year plan, which any “Virgle pioneers” can apply to become a part of, the partnership intends to terraform the Red Planet into a paradise by 2108.

***** WARNING: POTENTIAL SPOILER BELOW *****

But clicking the “Is this real?” in the frequently asked questions (FAQ) section reveals the truth!

— oh, all right. Fine. April Fool’s. Ha, ha, ha. It isn’t real. There. Are you happy? Does it please you to drag us out of our lovely little fantasy world, to crush all our hopes and dreams? Is that really what you need to hear? Fine, you’ve heard it. Virgle isn’t real.

Yet.

In reality, sending people to Mars really might be a lovely little fantasy, because new reports show radiation beyond the protective magnetic field of Earth is a real killer.

Still, there are many who think we can get there — we just need research into the risks of interplanetary space travel and methods to make it safer.

Seemingly strange fears pepper the collective psyche of the human race, such as phobias of the sun (heliophobia), hair (chaetophobia) and even vegetables (lachanophobia).

A recent news article hints at the existence of a phobia of little people, a term referring those of smaller statures (4 feet 10 inches or shorter, according to Little People of America).

Ethan Wade, who describes himself as a little person, went inside a Greenville County, S.C. burger joint to correct his drive-through window order. As he walked up to the register, an employee behind the counter allegedly “threw her hands up in the air, started yelling ‘Oh, my gosh! Oh my gosh!’ and ran to the back of the restaurant, continuing to yell as she was in back of the restaurant,” Wayne is quoted as saying in an article published by WYFF4 of South Carolina.

The woman then claimed she had a phobia of little people.

So far, no such phobia is recognized by any institution — clinical or otherwise — despite the fact that many people claim their fear should be. Coulrophobia, or the fear of clowns, is likewise not medically recognized but commonly held to exist.

Recent studies show that humans are evolutionary equipped to acquire phobias of living things (such as bats, rats and snakes), but only time and more research can tell if little people fit into that framework.

Engagement ring: $3,080.50

Zero-gravity flight for two: $8,295

Proposing in weightlessness: Priceless?

According to a recent boingboing post, a man recently proposed to his fiancee in zero-gravity. She accepted, of course.

The couple betrothed not in space, but rather in the belly of an airplane during one of several 24,000-foot (7.3-kilometer) nosedives to create the sensation of weightlessness. Their flight from ZERO G, the company that operates the parabolic-flying Boeing 727, cost $3,950 plus a 5 percent tax per head.

Perhaps surprisingly, their free-fall engagement isn’t the first. Last May, a New York City couple set a date during a similar parabolic flight and others came before them.

As for marriage in space? Yuri Malenchenko, now on board the International Space Station as a flight engineer, is the only human to get married during a bona fide spaceflight… kind of.

The first engagement or marriage with both parties present on orbit still awaits any brave — and wealthy — takers.

Japanese spaceflyer Takao Doi not only brought up his nation’s new orbital room to International Space Station (ISS), but also another special payload: Some high-tech undies.

Since arriving at the ISS aboard space shuttle Endeavour, Doi has also been sporting specially designed shirts, pants and shorts under the name “J-WEAR.” Each article, according to a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) release, is finished with a special nanotech fabric that can reportedly:

• Repel static
• Wick away water
• Kill bacteria
• Neutralize odors
• Prevent “fouling”, or permanent odor infusion

A JAXA handout on the space clothing being tested on STS-123. Credit: JAXA.

Doi’s cutting-edge threads are also crafted without any seams, and have easy hook-and-loop fasteners (which are oddly the only fire-retardant portion of his clothes).

No word yet on how the deodorizing properties of JAXA’s super-clothes are going to be evaluated, but one might expect some scientific analysis on par with Odor-Eaters annual “Rotten Sneaker Contest.”

Commanded by Dominic Gorie, the STS-123 Endeavour crew – and Doi’s new clothes – are slated to return to Earth the night of March 26.

Click here for SPACE.com’s continuing coverage of the STS-123 space shuttle mission.

HOUSTON — Nearly all is dark as you stumble onto the grassy knoll outside of Kennedy Space Center’s press site, except for the oversized digital clock less than 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) from launch Pad 39A. But when the clock reaches 00:00:00, something amazing happens.

White smoke begins to spew from beneath the space shuttle at the launch pad, then a brilliant flare ignites. As the flames race skyward from the billowing plume, once-murky clouds above the pad glow into a blinding haze so intense you need to squint.

And then, just as quickly as the spectacle began, it ends.

Night launches for NASA’s space shuttle missions have become increasingly rare, but shuttle Endeavour and its seven-astronaut crew rocketed toward the International Space Station (ISS) in the predawn darkness this morning at 2:28 a.m. EDT (0628 GMT).

Although Endeavour’s launch marks the 30th shuttle night launch — defined as 15 minutes after sunset and before sunrise — it is only the second such event in the past five years. So why the recent rarity?

Ever since the loss of space shuttle Columbia and its crew in 2003, the NASA has taken extra precautions to pinpoint any errant chunks of ice or insulating foam that can shed from the shuttle’s 15-story external fuel tank during launch. Such debris can impact heat-resistant tiles on the belly of the shuttle and threaten its safe return. Darkness, of course, doesn’t help technicians spot such activity in launch video footage.

Yet NASA has developed several ways to tone down the added danger of darkness and make night launches safer than ever. Those methods include a new flash photography system, scanning of thermal shield on orbit and taking photos of an orbiter’s underside from the space station.

NASA has no immediate plans for another night launch, but if the space agency does book another nighttime spectacle, don’t miss out on the opportunity to see it.

Commanded by Dominic Gorie, the STS-123 crew now in orbit above Earth are set to deliver Japan’s first orbital room and a two-armed robot named Dextre during a 16-day mission to the space station.

Click here for SPACE.com’s continuing coverage of the STS-123 space shuttle mission.

Beans give most people uncomfortable flatulence, but some legumes can be real killers.

Seven people were recently hospitalized after being around a suspicious vial of white powder in a Las Vegas motel room, according to an Associated Press (AP) story published today. The man found in the room with the vial even slipped into a coma.

The culprit? FBI officials have fingered the deadly poison ricin, which “… is made from the waste left over from processing castor beans. As little as 500 micrograms, or about the size of the head of a pin, can kill a human” according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the AP author wrote. Terrorism isn’t suspected.

Castor plants grow up to 15 feet (4.5 meters) in height, and are thought to have originated in Africa. Hundreds of millions of tons of the oil from their beans is extracted each year, and is used in everything from food additives, laxatives and pharmaceutical drugs to animal repellant, mold inhibitors and food packaging.

According to the CDC, ricin extracted from the bean’s leathery casing kicks in about 6 to 8 hours after being inhaled or swallowed. Once in the body, the toxin begins to shut down protein-making machinery in the body’s cells, eventually killing them.

If inhaled, severe flu-like symptoms appear in about 8 hours, followed by bluing of the skin and excess fluid in the lungs. Those unfortunate enough to swallow the compound suffer severe diarrhea, dehydration, low blood pressure, hallucinations, and even seizures.

No antidote yet exists for ricin, and it takes about three to five days to recover naturally — so don’t go sniffing any suspicious white powders around town.

There might be some seductive science behind the world-famous pipes of Barry White — the “Walrus of Love” — and other low-voiced males.

Researchers asked Tanzanian women of the Hadza people to pick a voice they preferred from sample of men saying “hello” in Swahili. Most of the time, they went for the deeper voices, according to a Jan. 3, 2008 article by Sean Bowditch of NPR. Turns out that men with deeper voices also had more children than the average Hadza daddy.

Harvard anthropologist Coren Apicella commented on the curious data in Bowditch’s piece:

“Why there’s this relationship, we’re not entirely sure yet,” Apicella said. “It could be that these men have greater access to mates. Maybe these men that have deeper voices have higher levels of testosterone. Or maybe they’re better hunters and they’re able to bring more food home to their wives.”

Whatever the case, other scientists agree that voices may be “signaling some biologically relevant information to potential mates.” Apicella and her colleagues aren’t yet sure, however, if the the deep-voice preference extends to other cultures — including the United States.

The sun’s corona can reach a steamy 3 million-or-so degrees Celsius, but scientists struggled to explain how until earlier this year: By high-speed Alfven waves roiling in solar magnetic fields.

The Japanese Hinode spacecraft, launched in 2006, snuck another peek at the weird waves. The detailed results confirm previous observations made by the Sacramento Peak Observatory in New Mexico.

The new data—which generated 10 studies(!) in a single issue of the journal Science last week—may also explain what drives the solar wind (and violent outbursts of radiation). A recent Los Angeles Times article offered some perspective on the matter:

A big radiation storm in 1972, during the era of U.S. manned lunar exploration, could have had lethal consequences, said Ron Zwickl, a spokesman for the Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colo. If astronauts had been on the moon at the time, “I doubt that any of them would have lived long,” Zwickl said.

Needless to say, Alfven waves are something NASA will keep in mind as potential manned missions to the moon and Mars enter serious planning.