Swiss Cow Fights Are No Bull

There's a massive crack in the ice

(NEWSER) - Swiss authorities have blocked off hiking trails near the Giesen glacier in the Bernese Alps and sent a crisis team to monitor it, for fear that it’s about to shed a slab of ice the size of 12 football fields. A huge crevasse has been discovered in the glacier, and while so far only small pieces of ice are falling, there’s a possibility of the whole thing fracturing and sending massive torrents of ice plummeting, the AFP reports. More»

Train will connect Switzerland to Italy

(NEWSER) - Switzerland is expected to break through the last few inches of rock to complete the world’s largest tunnel today. The 35.4-mile Gotthard Base rail burrows under the Gotthard massif on the route connecting Switzerland to Italy, the AP reports. The trains running through the tunnel will one day haul the goods currently carried over the mountains by foreign trucks—which, the Swiss fear, are damaging the Alpine landscape. More»

CERN may run experiments through the winter to make up lost time

(NEWSER) - The Large Hadron Collider has hit more delays, ZDNet reports, with experiments using the machine unlikely to restart until at least mid-November due to the discovery of two vacuum leaks. The agency overseeing the 17-mile atom-smasher buried under the French-Swiss border may take the unorthodox step of running its “Big Bang” simulation experiments through the winter, despite the high costs of electricity during that season. More»

(NEWSER) - A British skier who fell into a crevasse in the Swiss Alps was saved from plummeting 700 feet to his death when the BlackBerry in his breast pocket stopped his fall, the Telegraph reports. The extra width of the half-inch-thick gadget kept David Fitzherbert, 52, wedged firmly in place for two hours until he was rescued. The fall broke his jaw and nearly tore off his nose, but the PDA is still working. More»

Deep in the Alps, a village encounters influx of naked visitors

(NEWSER) - Appenzell is a remote, conservative town in the Swiss Alps; it has just 5,600 residents, makes famed cheese, and finally awarded women the right to vote in 1990. Yet in recent years, a growing number of Swiss and foreign visitors have taken to hiking through the mountains wearing nothing more than boots and a backpack. The town is struggling to understand why nude hiking has taken off—and as the New York Times reports, seems powerless to stop it. More»