Researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York have created a very short-lived, very tiny black hole, or at least, a fireball that behaved quite a lot like one for a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second.

The scientists at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) fired beams of gold nuclei into each other at relativistic speeds, creating a ball of plasma around 300m times hotter than the surface of the sun. According to Metro, a Daily Mail sister publication, some particles were then absorbed by the plasma in the same way that particles are absorbed by black holes.

While the research team at RHIC has described the work as groundbreaking, other scientists are unsure about that possible applications for the work. Ed Shuryak, a physicist at Stony Brook University, said that although the work was useful because "it will inspire thinking in that direction...it's going to be another thing to see if it bears any fruit."

We at El Reg have risen to this challenge and offer the following possible applications for micro-blackholes, all trademarked, of course:

• The Ultimate spam filter
• The Black Hole Toilet: never flush again
• The Infinity furniture storer: (we're still working on the retrievals...)
• The anti-lightbulb: swallow up the light when you need a nap at midday.

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