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Most everything you need to know about a particle collider can be summed up with just two numbers. The first is its energy--higher energies let scientists conjure up more massive particles (measured in gigaelectron volts, or GeV). The second is its luminosity, or the number of collisions per second.

NASA's shuttle program, set to make its final flight later this week, has resulted in the death of 14 astronauts. But it could have been a lot worse.