Novel hard nuclear processes probing the decay of nucleus after removal of a nucleon with momenta larger than Fermi momentum finally proved unambiguous evidence for long sought presence of short-range correlations (SRCs) in nuclei. Analysis of these processes in combination with the analysis of several other hard processes allows us to conclude that in heavy nuclei about 20 - 25% of the nucleons have momenta above the Fermi momentum and predominantly belong to proton-neutron pairs. The observed absolute probabilities and the isospin structure of two nucleon SRCs confirm the important role that tensor forces play in internucleon interactions. We argue that these measurements strongly constrain the mechanism of the EMC effect and suggest that it originates from a strong modification of the large x configurations in bound nucleons belonging to the SRCs. We outline experiments with lepton beams necessary for further progress in the understanding quark-gluon structure of the nuclei. Such experiments would be valuable also for precision analysis of hard phenomena in pA collisions at the LHC.
