'God particle: Confirmation achingly close'

Physicists in Italy said last Wednesday that they are achingly close to concluding that what they found last year was the Higgs boson, the elusive 'God particle'. They need to eliminate one last remote possibility that it's something else. The long theorised subatomic particle would explain why matter has mass and has been called a missing cornerstone of physics.

With new analyses, scientists are closer to being certain they found the crucial Higgs boson. But they want to be 99.9 percent positive, said Pauline Gagnon, a physicist with the European Center for Nuclear Research.

Last July, scientists with the world's largest atom smasher, the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider on the Swiss-French border, announced finding a particle they described as Higgs-like, but wouldn't say it was conclusively the particle. Now thousands of checks show them even closer.

"It looks more and more like a Higgs boson," said Gagnon after an update presented at a conference in the Italian Alps.Gagnon compared finding the Higgs to identifying a specific person. This looks, talks, and sings like a Higgs, but scientists want to make sure it dances like the Higgs before they shout "Eureka."

- AP