The universe, thanks to Minnesota

Posted at 1:28 PM on February 28, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)

Guess where a particle of "dark matter" -- the substance that forms the skeleton of galaxies -- may be hiding? Minnesota.

According to Science Daily, scientists are sitting in the Soudan Mine in northern Minnesota...

A consortium of research scientists, including Stanford physicist Blas Cabrera, anticipated the detection of a predicted-but-undiscovered dark particle known as a weakly interacting massive particle, or WIMP. The hope was that several WIMPs would travel through space and a half-mile of Earth to plunk themselves into the nuclei of germanium atoms in the detectors, each collision creating a vibration and a tiny puff of heat that would signal the WIMP's existence.

OK, granted they've been there for awhile, but what if the building block of the universe turned out to be right here in Minnesota? Why, that might be a bigger claim to fame for Minnesota than Diablo Cody.

But time is running out. Pretty soon they're going to move the operation to Canada.

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