A dozen kung fu nuns from an Asian Buddhist order displayed their martial arts prowess to bemused scientists at CERN as their spiritual leader explained how their energy was like that of the cosmos.

The nuns, all from the Himalayan region, struck poses of hand-chops, high-kicks and punches last week while touring the research centre where physicists at the frontiers of science are probing the origins of the universe.

The 12th Gyalwang Drukpa, Jigme Pema Wangchen, along with Kung-Fu trained nuns visit the universe of particles exhibition at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Meyrin near Geneva.

"Men and women carry different energy," said His Holiness Gyalwang Drukpa, a monk who ranks only slightly below the Dalai Lama in the global Buddhist hierarchy. "Both male and female energies are needed to better the world."

This, he said, was a scientific principle "as fundamental as the relationship between the sun and the moon" and its importance was similar to that of the particle collisions in CERN's vast "Big Bang" machine, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).