Science is keeping us all in the dark
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday December 26, 2009
SCIENTISTS may have found dark matter at the bottom of a Minnesota iron ore mine. Readers may wonder why they had to go all that way. Surely there is plenty to be had closer to home. Teenagers€™ bedroom floors, the furthest recesses of the glovebox, and that little drawer under the toaster where all the crumbs go would all seem to offer rich deposits of dark matter if scientists would only care to look. It turns out though that this dark matter is different. Physicists have calculated most of the universe must be made of it, but no one has found any €“ until now. Dark matter may explain not only why stars stick together in galaxies but more abstruse questions, such as why time only moves in one direction. This can only be good news. But we want more. Scientists should ransack more of Minnesota for answers to other long-standing riddles of nature: What happened to Harold Holt? Is Elvis dead? And why is the bus always leaving just as the bus stop comes into view?
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald
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