Kenosha Reporter

BREIT FOR CONGRESS issued the following announcement on July 9.

The Cage, as the elevator is called, leaves at exactly 7:30 a.m. Latecomers are out of luck.

Nearly two dozen people in coveralls, hard hats and thick rubber boots pack inside the Cage before the heavy yellow metal doors are yanked shut and the slow descent into darkness begins. A steady stream of water rains down on them from the timber planks that buttress the elevator shaft, which must be kept continuously wet to prevent rot. Nobody seems to mind. The talk is about family life, weekend plans and what's for lunch.

About 10 minutes later, nearly a mile down, the lift thumps to a stop. When the doors open, you step into a cavern with rough rock walls.

Until 2002, this was a working gold mine in South Dakota's Black Hills. Miners once blasted the rock walls with explosives. The rail tracks underfoot carried carts laden with supplies up to the surface. Now they're being used to send mini-trains with equipment and personnel deep into the tunnels that stretch in every direction.

A little way down one corridor is a clean room where you must change your coveralls, wash your boots and clean your possessions with rubbing alcohol. As you walk farther, it starts to feel more like a regular—though windowless—workplace. Tubing runs overhead and along the walls. Desks press up against one side of the corridor. There's even an espresso machine and a panini maker.

At the end of the hallway, a pair of doors swing open to reveal a scientific laboratory, the Davis Campus at the Sanford Underground Research Facility. It's named for Ray Davis, the first physicist to experimentally detect neutrinos emitted from the sun. In the 1960s, while the mine was still a mine, Davis carried out his groundbreaking work down here. Today, the space resembles a villain's lair in an old James Bond movie. Researchers rush around, checking equipment and monitors. Computers stacked on top of one another hum.

This is where Brandeis physicist Bjoern Penning and his lab, along with 250 other researchers from around the globe, are searching for the ultimate treasure in particle physics—dark matter. One of the most elusive yet ubiquitous substances in the universe, dark matter remains one of the great scientific mysteries.

Original source here.