I’m pretty far from my physics classes, but I still track the “science news” here and there.  Garrett Lisi has written a paper that, on the face of it, links the “Standard Model” of the universe with gravity.  If the paper turns out to be right, (and the jury is still out), that would fill a huge gap in our understanding of the universe.

The paper itself made my head hurt by the time I got to page 4.  But someone pointed me to this explanation of E8 geometry that cleared quite a bit up for me.