CERN stands for "Conseil Europeen pour le Recherche Nucleaire" and is a European research lab reponsible for particle physics and other scienitific subjects. It is currently the world's largest particle physics laboratory. In regards to the Internet Tim Berners-Lee was working for CERN in 1989 (at this time it was the largest Internet node in Europe) while developing the World Wide Web and writing the first web client server in 1990. Berners-Lee first worked as an independent contractor at CERN in 1980, and it was at this time he first proposed hypertext as a concept. For further reading about the research conducted at their lab visit the official site.