Evidence for a particle that is its own antiparticle

In a discovery that concludes an 80-year quest, Stanford and University of California researchers found evidence of particles that are their own antiparticles. These 'Majorana fermions'  could one day help make quantum computers more robust. See video here. In 1928, physicist Paul Dirac made the stunning prediction that every fundamental particle in the universe has an antiparticle - its identical twin but with opposite charge. When particle and antiparticle met they would be annihilated, releasing a poof of energy. Sure enough, a few years later the first antimatter particle - the electron's opposite, the positron - was discovered, and antimatter quickly became part of popular culture. But in 1937, another brilliant physicist, Ettore Majorana, introduced a new twist: He predicted that in the class of particles known as fermions, which includes the proton, neutron, electron, neutrino and quark, there should be particles that are their own antiparticles.