CERN lets us play with the Large Hadron Collider in the cloud

"You break it, you bought it," came to mind when researchers at the Centre for European Nuclear Research (CERN) announced the LHC@home 2.0, giving us regular Joes access to the Large Hadron Collider. As the world's highest energy particle accelerator, this bad boy is tasked with testing the boundaries of physics, deciphering the laws of nature, and -- no biggie. Version two dot oh gives volunteers access to a "virtual supercomputer" where they can simulate particle collision experiments from their home computers. Researchers at the CERN will take the results and compare them to known LHC experiments, saving tons of cash and manpower. Besides being a great way to get your science on, the cloud-based program also makes CERN's resources (like crisis mapping and damage assessment) available to researchers in developing nations that may not to be able to afford the accelerator's $6 billion dollar price tag -- but nowadays, what nation can?