Researchers from U.C. Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley Labs were part of a team of scientists from CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) who reported yesterday that they had successfully created and trapped a form of antimatter: antihydrogen. Until now, it had not been possible to trap atoms of antimatter without having them automatically annihilate themselves the moment they were created, as soon as they hit the ordinary matter of the containers in which they were created.

The new process, first tested by the Berkeley team, uses an "octupole" magnetic trap that holds the anitmatter atoms in a powerful magnetic field at temperatures more than 400 degrees below zero.

They only created 38 atoms and only held them for two tenths of a second, however the experiment is expected to lead to larger experiments that will help scientists understand, as never before, the fundamental properties of the Big Bang, and where all the antimatter went. [Chron, LA Times]