{"id":1298,"date":"2007-07-11T11:32:28","date_gmt":"2007-07-11T16:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2007\/07\/11\/south-dakota-takes-quantum-leap\/"},"modified":"2007-07-11T11:32:28","modified_gmt":"2007-07-11T16:32:28","slug":"south-dakota-takes-quantum-leap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2007\/07\/11\/south-dakota-takes-quantum-leap\/","title":{"rendered":"South Dakota Takes Quantum Leap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.argusleader.com\/apps\/pbcs.dll\/article?AID=\/20070711\/NEWS\/707110317\/1001\">Argus Leader<\/a>, via the <a href=\"http:\/\/ksjtracker.mit.edu\/?p=3480\">Science Journalism Tracker<\/a>.  The National Science Foundation has finally decided on a location for its Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory, which has been up in the air <a href=\"http:\/\/sciencenow.sciencemag.org\/cgi\/content\/full\/2007\/710\/2\">for years now<\/a>.  The winner is the place that had a head start on its various competitors:  the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lbl.gov\/nsd\/homestake\/\">Homestake Mine<\/a> in the Black Hills.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lbl.gov\/nsd\/homestake\/\"><img class='center' width='490' src='http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/files\/uploads\/2007\/07\/homestake.jpg' alt='Homestake DUSEL' \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The underground lab will be the site for a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.argusleader.com\/apps\/pbcs.dll\/article?AID=\/20070711\/NEWS\/707110319\/1001\">diverse array of experiments<\/a>, from searches for dark matter and proton decay to investigations into biology and geology under extreme conditions.  The Homestake site is already famous, of course, as the home of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Davis_Experiment\">Ray Davis&#8217;s neutrino experiment<\/a>, where the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Solar_neutrino_problem\">solar neutrino problem<\/a> was first identified.  The mine itself, the deepest and (until recently) oldest operating mine in the Western Hemisphere, was operational until 2001.  The NSF immediately wanted to take it over to use as a lab, but the Barrick Mining Corporation demanded that the government also assume any future liability for problems arising the mine (not a stance that fills one with confidence), and if not, they would flood it.  While negotiations dragged on, others jumped into the game, and eventually a competition was launched that ended up choosing Homestake anyway.  I&#8217;m not expert enough to judge whether the effort expended on the competition was all just a waste of time, or whether the ultimate scientific capabilities of the facility were really improved by the process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to the Argus Leader, via the Science Journalism Tracker. The National Science Foundation has finally decided on a location for its Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory, which has been up in the air for years now. The winner is the place that had a head start on its various competitors: the Homestake Mine [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}