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traditions."
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ND gov appeals to propane cos. to ease shortage
• BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) -- North Dakota's governor is asking propane suppliers to do as much as they can to deliver the fuel to farmers who need it for drying grain.
• The gas is in short supply across parts of the Midwest and West because of supply disruptions and abnormally high demand because of the late start to plating and wet harvest.
• Gov. Jack Dalrymple's office says it has contacted Kinder Morgan and CHS to encourage them to mobilize all available supplies of propane.
• He and some other governors have signed executive orders extending the time fuel truck drivers can be on the road, so they can legally go farther to pick up propane.
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Search for dark matter comes up empty so far
CHET BROKAW, Associated Press Writers
SETH BORENSTEIN, Associated Press Writers
• LEAD, S.D. (AP) -- Nearly a mile underground in an abandoned gold mine, one of the most important quests in physics has so far come up empty in the search for the elusive substance known as dark matter, scientists announced Wednesday.
• But physicists on the project were upbeat, saying they had developed a new, more sensitive method of searching for the mysterious material that has mass but cannot be seen. They planned to keep looking.
• "This is just the opening salvo," said Richard Gaitskell of Brown University, a scientist working on the Large Underground Xenon experiment, or LUX, the most advanced Earth-based search for dark matter. A detector attached to the International Space Station has so far failed to find any dark matter either.
• The researchers released their initial findings Wednesday after the experiment's first few months at the Sanford Underground Research Facility, which was built in the former Homestake gold mine in South Dakota's Black Hills.
• With more than 4,800 feet of earth helping screen out background radiation, scientists tried to trap dark matter, which they hoped would be revealed in the form of weakly interacting massive particles, nicknamed WIMPS. The search, using the most sensitive equipment in the world, is looking for the light fingerprint of a WIMP bouncing off an atomic nucleus of xenon cooled to minus 150 degrees.
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