All the matter and energy in our universe are composed of a set of (as yet known) fundamental particles. These particles fall into two major classes: Fermions and Bosons. Fermions (named after Italian scientist Enrico Fermi) follow Pauli's Exclusion Principle by which no two Fermion can occupy the same energy state. Electrons, Protons and Neutrons are all Fermions. Bosons (named after Indian scientist Satyendra Nath Bose) do not follow the Pauli Principle. Photons (particles of light, carrier of the electromagnetic force), and Gluons (carrier of the strong nuclear force, that binds protons and neutrons into atomic nuclei) are Bosons.

Fundamental Particles (Courtesy: Scott Menary)Interestingly, all the matter particles are Fermions, and the force/energy particles are Bosons! The fundamental particles combine in different ways to give rise to the beautiful world we see all around us:).
The matter particles are further classified into Leptons (which includes the electrons, positrons and neutrinos), and Quarks (of which there are six varieties: up, down, strange charmed, top and bottom) which make up protons and neutrons. The force particles are photon (electromagnetic force), gluon (strong nuclear force), W and Z boson (weak nuclear force, responsible for radioactivity).
Now why all this talk about particle physics?! Because scientists are slowly unravelling the secrets of this ultra-small world, and recently physicists may have discovered the first hybrid meson at the KEK laboratory in Japan. Mesons are normally made up of a quark and an anti-quark. But this hybrid meson contains a gluon as well:). The meson was first predicted 25 years ago, and its detection suggests that scientists are on the right track with their theories.
The new meson was observed in electron-positron collisions by the international Belle collaboration at KEK and quickly decays into two well-known particles called the Omega and J/psi. The properties of the decay have led the Belle team to believe that it is not a standard quark-antiquark particle but may be a hybrid meson containing a charm quark, a charm antiquark and a gluon.
The new meson is the latest in a list of recent surprising discoveries in particle physics. These include several particles called pentaquarks (which may or may not exist) that contain five quarks, a particle called the X(3872) that appears to be made of four quarks, and another meson called the Ds(2317) that does not behave as predicted.
We still have a lot to learn:):):).