You state: "for one force (entity) to have an affect on another, there must be some kind of physical interaction, apparently at the quantum level (or smaller)."

Are you saying every entity is a force? The "affect on another", is it another force or another entity? Perhaps you should define entity; Explain why "FORCE" is being used here…. oh yeah… Which force(s) do you mean by the way? Perhaps you have your own definitions youve come up with on your own. Since it would be a sin for you to learn what it is from someone else.

You also state we are looking in the wrong place/direction, but you dont clarify. What direction do you want people to look? If someone asks you to find an airplane flying through the air, do you take a submarine below the surface of the ocean? You point out a reasonable direction for us to look, and I'll look for you. You need to be a bit more specific; perhaps really understand what you are saying.

I'll finish up with something which had me laughing for a good 2 minutes. You stated, "…there must be some kind of physical interaction, apparently at the quantum level (or smaller). I suppose that we could call this interaction "Dark Matter".

Are you saying that we classify anything we can't physically see which has quantum activity dark matter?; or that dark matter is simply quantum level interactions? For things smaller than the quantum level… do you have your own physics here? Since you obviously dont follow the known models.

Please enlighten us with your uncontaminated thoughts and ideas on these subjects and show us where we have gone wrong.

Dark energy works within the cosmilogical standard model, which right now is pretty solid; although there are those who don't totally buy into it (bless them).

Dark matter falls more (perhaps best) into the the standard model which covers sub-atomic particles (2 totally different SM's); which as most people know is a puzzle with many pieces missing; along with the fact most of it makes little sense in comparison to the B I G P I C T U R E.

If the LHC doesn't recreate the big bang, black holes or whatever these crazy people can think of… and send us into oblivion, we may finally begin to find some of these pieces, or figure out we need to trash it and go down to the nearest Wal-Mart and purchase a new game.

Why not say a planet, sun, or black hole is a concoction of gravity.

To state something so crazy, you should at least explain yourself a bit better.

And how, pray tell, does one differentiate the dark plasma from the glowing plasma (see Bullet Cluster and cousin). And why, oh why doesn't the plasma heat up on collision?

:rolls eyes: why do I even bother? Feel free to delete this along with troll.

Dark matter is clearly just another concoction of the gravity only Universe, by astrophysicists who have never had a course, or much less studied plasma electrodynamics.

Prime

Doing research, putting it down on paper and presenting it at a conference does not mean it is the be all–end all of what the study was about. Many research papers are released every day about many different things. Think of it as constant situational awareness on what everyone is doing. It shouldn't be compared with research which is published and accepted.

Because the standard model right now is pretty much an incomplete puzzle, I don't think you'll find anyone brave enough to attempt to convince a publisher they have DM nailed down; at least until their research has been thoroughly through the wringer.

Is it possible some people are working to get their quantum physics research teams more visibility with the upcoming LHC and its hopeful findings? Big time… YES.

While the "Cold Fusion" publishing created a bit of a black eye; it also provided needed visibility which caused the politicians in Washington D.C. to throw more money into fusion research. Not to mention the fact, fusion (He-3 stores) is first and foremost the reason most countries are trying to get to the moon ASAP.

Finally… I'm with Particle Guy; when it comes to chaos and the current standard model; that we don't find the Higgs Boson etc. I think a total revolution would be a good thing for science. It will cause us to be more inventive than ever before.

If I understand this correctly, you seem to be implying the positrons ARE the dark matter. Whoops. Positrons, while being antimatter, are still "baryonic" and thus "normal" matter.
And you state correctly otherwise that PAMELA seems to have measured the excess positron flux from DM decay – the DM are other particles.

@jerry, ed: I concur with jerry: They cite the PAMELA team, and while it's a bit bold to use data excerpted from a photo (!), they do not claim they disovered DM or so – they just use the observations to have a look at their pet theoretical model. In the long run, especially if the PAMELA results should appear in Nature or Science, this paper will be forgotten. And, no, you don't need to cite them. So cool down, ed. Many people show preliminary results at conferences, and you don't need to sign non-disclosure agreements when attending (although there IS a discussion on this in Germany right now for conferences in medicine where journalists might raise the hope of patients concerning therapies that have not yet been put through clinical trials).

@Particle Guy: Almost yes. For Neutron -> Proton (inverse beta decay) you need something like electron capture, not only a W. Secondly, one should add that all names of supersymmetric partners of Bosons are formed via the -ino ending, so the supersymmetric partner of a Z is a Zino, of a Gluon a Gluino etc. The Wino is just a funny coincidence.

Final point: I thought at first UT was REALLY quick and was talking about this paper:

http://arxiv.org/abs/0809.0162

So, as you can see, the guys mentioned in this article are not the only ones…

Not surprising they wanted to wait to publish, there's a LOT of questions they'll need to have answers for to try and make this make any sense! I, for one, look forward to a complete accounting of the data involved, it could be a real eye opener.

I think the scientists jumping the gun were after the glory of a "first kill" in a effort to get their theory out to science community without any competing theories to get in it's way.

I hope the dark matter turns out to be something else, because quantum physicists have been talking about supersymmetry for decades. It'll be more fun to see that idea (and superstrings with it) fall apart and watch them scratch their heads and wonder about it all over again.

and I can tell you why M. Cirelli did it.

Whatever experimental confirmation of "Dark Matter" will eventually lead to a nobel prize.
Simply because every paper published later on will have to cite him as first reference; meaning that his paper will formally open a new chapter in physics that is that Dark matter physics.

I despise unethical scientists. As a young scientist myself I just feel shame for that kind of behavior.

Whatever scum scientist that tried to publish a mere abstract based on pictures of another (but hard working) peer scientist should be revoked of his PhD.
What a shame. No ethics at all. Shame on you dirty scientist.

The real problem is that the review process is too slow.

It seems to present results similar (perhaps identical) to those that you describe. While not yet definitive, the results presented here are quite convincing!