Over the past century or so, women have increasingly gained access to a growing range of family-planning options that are much more reliable than the ages-old “rhythm” method–and, for many women, much more physically taxing. With a little high-tech help, however, this old-fashioned method could soon take on 21st-century birth control in a very big way.A new fertility algorithm developed by Swedish particle physicist Elina Berglund has been shown to be upwards of 95% effective at preventing unplanned pregnancy without hormones, barriers, or anything more than its signature smartphone app. Berglund, who helped discover the ground-breaking Higgs boson particle, told WIRED UK that the idea for the project arose in the lull after the Large Hadron Collider’s first run in 2012.

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