The Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP) at the Swiss-based European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) closes its doors for good this month. This is after the LEP experiments produced collisions compatible with the production of the elusive Higgs boson, a theoretical particle thought to be related to the formation of particle mass. Unfortunately for LEP, the new data were too inconclusive to justify another year of running the collider. LEP, which is the world's largest particle collider, will be replaced by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), that will continue with Higgs boson research. This week's In the News features news articles about the LEP's closing, public education sites from LEP, CERN, and LHC, and information about why the discovery of the Higgs boson is so essential to physicists.
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