Deep lab denied funding.

A mbitious plans to build one of the world's deepest underground laboratories have suffered a serious setback. The US National Science Board (NSB) has refused to continue to fund the design of the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory (DUSEL), leaving some 1,000 researchers hoping to do science there uncertain about its future. The lab is set to be housed in Homestake, a former goldmine near Lead, South Dakota. The mine is an ideal location for sensitive experiments trying to catch sight of hard-to-detect particles such as neutrinos and dark matter. At almost 2,500 metres deep, it would shield DUSEL from the cosmic rays that would otherwise drown out signals from the lab's elusive targets. The US National Science Foundation (NSF) and its partners, including the US Department of Energy, have already committed more than $300 million towards DUSEL, which is expected to cost more than $800 million in total. But Edward Seidel, assistant director for mathematical and physical sciences at the NSF, says that the $29 million awarded to the University of Cali-fornia, Berkeley, in 2009 to design and prepare the mine for DUSEL has proved inadequate. Safety concerns arose earlier this year about the mine shafts that scientists will use to access the facility. It is also proving difficult to pump groundwater from the ageing mine. As funds could not be reallocated from other parts of the project, programme managers this month requested another $19 million now, with perhaps another $10 million to come in the spring of 2011, to continue that preparatory work. But the NSB, which must approve large outlays by the NSF, refused both requests on 2 December. Although the infrastructure for each of the lab's experiments will be managed by an allocated lead agency, the board was concerned by the perceived lack of a clear steward-ship plan for the mine's infrastructure, raising the prospect that the NSF could face balloon-ing costs. Board members also believe that the energy department should contribute more than its current commitment of $100 million. " We don't know if this is a glitch or a death knell. I think the users feel like we're in limbo right now, " says Steven Elliott, a neutron scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and chairman of the executive committee of the DUSEL Research Association, which represents the researchers who expect to do science at the new lab. The NSB's …