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alongside dozens of scientists over the past few years to move forward with the Large Underground Xenon experiment -- or LUX -- the world's most sensitive dark-matter detector.
• For most people, dark matter is a term that made their eyes glaze over in science class. But for Gaitskell and other scientists, it's the mystery meat of existence.
• "It's this huge piece of the puzzle that's just missing for us," said Tom Schutt, a scientist with Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, who was on hand for the unveiling of the lab Wednesday.

• Regular matter -- people and planets, for example -- make up about 4 percent of the total mass-energy of the universe. Scientists estimate that dark matter makes up about 25 percent.
• Scientists know it exists by its gravitational pull but, unlike regular matter and antimatter, dark matter undetectable. Gaitskell -- who said he's been "hunting dark matter" for 23 years -- and his colleagues know only that it could explain why the universe isn't made up equally of matter and antimatter. That, in turn, could explain how the world as we know it came to be.
• Gaitskell and Schutt were among a handful of scientists Wednesday who greeted Gov. Dennis Daugaard, former Gov. Mike Rounds, philanthropist T. Denny Sanford and dozens of scientists and journalists who took the 11-minute ride down a shaft that had been used by countless miners for more than a century.
• Beneath the earth are 370 miles of tunnels over 7,700 acres. The new lab takes up about 10,000 square feet, leaving plenty of room for expansion. The once-grimy mine has been washed clean and painted white. Concrete paths were poured for

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