Scientists say the Large Hadron Collider may be on the verge of its first scientific breakthroughs.

They say the $10 billion atom smasher under the Swiss-French border appears to have recreated at a small level the matter that existed in the first moments of the universe.

A scientific paper published this week by the European Organization for Nuclear Research describes how high-energy proton collisions produced unusual readings that could replicate the "hot dense matter" that would have existed microseconds after the Big Bang