novel insights into dark matter’s properties

[GoodTaste]

Because of its superior signal-to-noise ratio and its bias toward detecting gamma rays from decaying particles, Hamaus says, the technique might offer novel insights into dark matter’s properties that would be inaccessible via gamma-ray studies of overdense regions alone. For instance, the greater the average lifetime of a dark-matter particle, the less decay should occur over a given region of space and time.

Source: World News Era

The grammar of "dark matter's properties" deviates from what I leard from the grammar book (A Comprehensive English Grammar for Foreign Students by ECKERSLEY and ECKERSLEY), in which the authors said the possessive form should be used in living things like humans or animals. So the grammar of "dark matter's properties" is not correct since dark matter is inorganic.
Have times changed that this possessive form is acceptable or noral in today's English grammar?

 

[jutfrank]

The sentence is certainly not incorrect. The book was apparently giving guidance rather than saying what's right or wrong. In fact, it's very common to use the possessive form for inorganic things.