'Angel particle' discovery called milestone

A Chinese-American scientist and his team discovered a particle that can be both matter and antimatter, which can potentially lead to more advanced quantum computers.

The particle, called Majorana fermion, is named after Italian theoretical physicist Ettore Majorana, who first predicted its existence in 1937. Typically, when a particle - the basic building block of matter - and an antiparticle - its identical twin but with an opposite charge - collide, they will annihilate each other, releasing a burst of energy.

The Majorana fermion, however, is a strange exception that can simultaneously exist both as a particle and as its own antiparticle. This hypothesis has fascinated and puzzled scientists ever since.