Leader: Antimatter's storage abilities good reason for awe

So SCIENTISTS at CERN have cracked a way to store antimatter. Quite what the point is of storing it - even assuming it doesn't disappear when your back is turned - is unclear. It is one of the great mysteries of the universe.

In the Da Vinci Code novel of Dan Brown, antimatter is used as a weapon of mass destruction: just half a gramme would have the explosive force of 20 Hiroshimas. Making a few grammes of it would be very dangerous - but would take billions of years.

For the lay person, the questions pile up. If it's antimatter, how do we know it is there? If it can be stored, would a cardboard box do, or does it demand something sturdier? You wouldn't want it to leak, in case it wiped out adjoining matter. And what would happen if you lost it?

The boffins at CERN say they have successfully stored antimatter made from hydrogen for more than 16 minutes by using a state-of-the-art superconducting magnet to suspend the anti-atoms away from the walls, to store the anti-hydrogen.

But as matter and antimatter destroy each other on contact, we do hope they know what they are doing. This is the sort of stuff that makes a jar of last year's decomposing chutney seem benign.