1. This month marks the 15th anniversary of the longest underwater tunnel in the world: the 31-mile Chunnel linking France and England.
2. Construction took seven years and chewed through 11 tunnel-boring machines and about $6.6 billion — 80 percent over budget.
3. Quantum bummer: In 1993, $2 billion and 14 miles in, Congress axed the Superconducting Supercollider, which was designed to create the world’s greatest particle accelerator in a 54-mile-long circular tunnel beneath Texas.