A SCIENTIST carrying out experiments 1km beneath the North York Moors spoke to students about his research yesterday.

Dr Pete Edwards, from Durham University, gave a talk to students from Prior Pursglove College, Guisborough, near Stockton, about his research in a £3.1m laboratory built 1,100m below the coast in Boulby Potash, Europe's deepest mine, off Boulby, in east Cleveland.

Dr Edwards is among scientists investigating the nature, properties and distribution of the universe's dark matter, one of the great unanswered mysteries in cosmology.

Detectors have been built in the mine to try to find dark matter -theoretical matter that makes up 90 per cent of the universe.

The mine is ideal for the research because it is deep enough to shelter experiments from cosmic rays, and the nature of the rocks mean there is low natural radioactivity.

Andrew Watts, the college's excellence challenge co-ordinator, said: "This is the cutting edge of particle physics, and we are very lucky to have such an important project taking place in our area and to get to hear about it from Dr Edwards himself."

The talk was arranged through the AimHigher initiative.