We should make this rock we live on a better place for all as well as looking at the stars, Bob Geldof told the world’s leading scientists yesterday.

Ireland has much to offer to the world of science as well as the arts, President Michael D Higgins declared at the opening of the 2012 Euroscience Open Forum in Dublin last night.

Scientists are expected to reveal “significant progress” in the search for the so-called “God particle” today, but will not be able to say whether it exists or not, they said.

The world's largest atom smasher was poised to start a new era of science today, colliding beams of protons to learn more about the make-up of the universe and its smallest particles.