The 4th of July is usually known as American Independence Day, but in 2012 it’s been overshadowed by events in Europe. First it was rejection of Anti-Counterfeiting Treaty Agreement in the European Parliament at around 1PM. Which was rejected by 478 MEPs, while 165 MEPs absteined from the vote and only 39 MEPs voted for it. As soon as we were able to process the votes, I looked at computer screen, and what do I see..., a discovery of Higgs Boson!

Higgs Boson... one might say, “but what that has to do with European Union politics and Amelia’s work”. Well, Higgs Boson was found by CERN, which stands for European Organisation for Nuclear Research. Amelia is a full member of ITRE, an Industry, Research and Energy committee. Finding Higgs, has long-term implications for Europe’s and rest of the world’s scientific and research community.  At the moment Higgs Boson is considered to be around the mass of 126.3 with variance of +/- 0.6 GeV and significance of 4.9Q.

• You can watch CERN announcement of Higgs Boson discovery HERE
• Also CERN blog in further detail HERE