A US experiment is poised to resolve confusion over whether dark matter has already been detected. LUX (the Large Underground Xenon Experiment) at Sanford Underground Laboratory in Lead, South Dakota, announced today that it will release its first results on October 30. Read more
Swedish researchers have reported strong evidence for the formation of element 115, some 9 years after Russian researchers first claimed to detect a nucleus with 115 protons. Read more
The United States should build a powerful new X-ray laser that could make movies of electrons moving in materials and chemical reactions, a US government advisory panel recommended today. Read more
Two ultra-high energy neutrinos captured by the IceCube experiment probably came from outside the Galaxy, according to an analysis posted by the collaboration today. Read more
In the first of its reports on alleged scientific misconduct to be released since the 2011 introduction of a new scientific integrity policy, the US Department of Interior (DOI) has rejected allegations brought by Paul Houser, a scientific integrity official and hydrologist who claimed in 2012 that he was fired for trying to do his job calling out bad science. Read more
Ting says he has used some 8 million particle events to map the excess across an energy spectrum from 0.5 gigaelectronvolts to 350 gigaelectronvolts, and that he plans to report it in a paper to be sent to a high energy physics journal in a couple of weeks. He does not yet have sufficient data to report the entire energy range that AMS is sensitive to, up to 1 tera-electron volt, in a statistically meaningful way. Ting had reporters hanging on his every word as he appeared at one point to hint that spectrum might drop off at some energy in a way that could be consistent with a theory of dark matter. But then he added in response to direct questions that he might also have no signal. Read more
“I am very concerned that if we have to close a major facility our field is going to continue a spiral down,” says Tribble, of Texas A&M University in College Station. “It’s a very, very difficult situation.” … Read more
Here’s a lesson for those who don’t keep careful track of their lab supplies. A medical lab at Pfizer’s Research and Development Center in Chesterfield, Missouri, has allegedly lost up to $700,000 worth of gold dust bought last year, the St-Louis Post Dispatch reports. According to the newspaper, a keen-eyed Pfizer auditor was unable to account for some or all of the stash while conducting an inventory; police aren’t sure whether the missing amount was lost, stolen, or used in experiments without a record being kept. Read more
At first glance, many of the western blots in the data of nutrition researcher Eric J. Smart, censured yesterday by the US government’s Office of Research Integrity over a 10 year career of misconduct, look innocuous. Read more
