Europe's atom smasher sets a record

GENEVA: The world's largest atom smasher yesterday broke the record for proton acceleration previously held by a US lab, sending beams of the particles at 1.18 trillion electron volts around the massive machine.

The Large Hadron Collider eclipsed the previous high of 0.98 1 TeV held by Fermilab, outside Chicago, since 2001, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), said.

The latest success is part of the preparation to reach even higher levels of energy for significant experiments next year on the make-up of matter and the universe.