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Profile this week looks at the physicist Peter Higgs who in the 1960s predicted the existence of the so-called "God Particle" which scientists think they glimpsed at CERN this week. The Higgs boson - which has so excited the scientific community this week - is a subatomic particle which gives mass to all matter and the quest to find it has been described as the holy grail of physics.Peter Higgs made his prediction in the mid-1960s when he was a relatively young scientist, adding a crucial element to the Standard Model of the universe. At the time the significance of his work was not widely recognised or understood, and one leading scientific journal even turned down one of his early papers setting out his groundbreaking theory.Higgs, now in his 80s, is very much a theoretical scientist. Colleagues say he has never excelled at practical experiments, and to this day he doesn't get on with computers.What kind of man is he? Samira Ahmed talks to those who know the scientist, and asks what makes him tick.Producers: Ben Crighton and Arlene Gregorius.

Samira Ahmed profiles Newt Gingrich, the American former Speaker of the House who is now a leading contender for the Republican nomination to run against Barack Obama in next year's US presidential election. Earlier this year he was largely written off as a presidential contender when many of his staff left his campaign. But now he has made a dramatic comeback.In the 1990s he was one of the Republicans who led the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton for perjury over his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Yet at the same time Mr Gingrich was engaged in his own extra-marital affair with the woman who became his third wife.Samira Ahmed talks to people who have known and worked with Newt Gingrich throughout his career. She hears of similarities between Gingrich and Clinton: both had difficult relationships with their step-fathers, dominating mothers, and both wanted to be transformational figures. But Gingrich appears to lack Clinton's personal charm.Gingrich is both attacked and admired as an ideological politician, although some say he is driven by pragmatism and has an acute sense of what will play well with his supporters.With a controversial past - he was fined $300,000 for ethics breaches in Congress - how has he turned things round? Who is the real Newt Gingrich, and would he make a good president? Producers: Ben Crighton and Arlene Gregorius.

Profile this week takes a look at the Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour who has surprised many by announcing he is to quit music for a career in politics. The son of a car mechanic, N'Dour went on to become one of the most influential recording artists in the world. With presidential elections taking place in Senegal next February, Edward Stourton asks if N'Dour has what it takes to succeed on the political stage.Producers: Ben Crighton and Hannah Barnes.