Tucson Astronomy

Yeah, UofA has a strong astronomy department. They apparently built some satellites that went into space. Maybe the proximity to Kitt's peak formed the tradition?

You wrote:

"A universe that's dominated by dark stuff seems preposterous, so we wanted to test whether there were any basic flaws in our thinking," said Doug Clowe of the University of Arizona at Tucson, and leader of the study. "These results are direct proof that dark matter exists."

We'll get into a fight over this ... but there's no way -- none whatever -- that Mr. Clowe can make such a definitive statement as "direct proof that dark matter exists." At best he took some observations, factored in a slew of assumptions, and came to a conclusion. But he still relied on assumptions. He had to.

A better phrasing of that would be: "Strong evidence that dark matter exists."