Higgs is so yesterday – dark matter is the new black. A new survey of about 50 particle theorists reveals mixed feelings about whether the long-sought Higgs boson will ever point the way to new theories, but renewed optimism that the mysterious stuff that makes up most of the universe's matter will show us the way.

The Higgs boson filled in the missing piece of the standard model, physicists' current best explanation of all the particles and forces in the known universe. However, the standard model is still incomplete – it does not account for gravity, for example – so physicists hoped the Higgs would turn out to be weird enough to point the way to new theories.

Dark matter tops physicists' wish list, post-Higgs by Jacob Aron, New Scientist