Dark Matter Rumour

In between a morning session – technically a “half-away-day” discussing Strategic Issues in the Development of Postgraduate Research at Cardiff University (zzzz..) and tootling off to Bristol this afternoon to give a recapitulation of my public lecture on the Cosmic Web to the South-West Branch of the Institute of Physics in Bristol, I don’t have time to post much today.

I will, however, take the opportunity to do what the blogosphere does best, which is to spread unfounded (or perhaps partly founded rumours). If it’s true this one is a biggy, but I’m not responsible for any loss or damage arising if it turns out to be untrue…

The rumour (which I first heard about here and then, a bit later, there) is that the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) experiment (which is based down  a mine in Minnesota, but  run from the University of California at Berkeley) is about to announce the direct discovery of dark matter.

I don’t have any inside information, but it is alleged that the collaboration has had paper accepted in Nature – and they generally only publish really significant results rather than upper limits (unless they are to do with gravitational waves).  Nature articles are embargoed until publication, meaning that the collaboration can’t release the results or talk about them until December 18…

..so I guess you will just have to wait!