Exciting hints that scientists had finally discovered the existence of dark matter – the mysterious substance thought to make up a quarter of the Universe – were dashed last night as researchers realised their equipment had detected a dark mattress instead.

The premature announcement was blamed on faulty software. “Apparently, someone left an errant ampersand in our code,” said an embarrassed physicist, before weeping slowly into a whisky glass.

The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) laboratory, buried half a mile underground in an iron mine, announced last night that they had found traces of the weakly-interacting massive particles (or WIMPs) that are thought to make up dark matter.

Instead, they had actually detected a dirty poorly-sprung mattress, left in the cave