Europe’s particle physics laboratory, CERN, is taking a cautious approach on persistent rumors (see, for example, the ViXra blog) that two experiments at its Large Hadron Collider have independently found evidence for the Higgs particle with a mass of 125 GeV – right in the ballpark predicted by the standard model of particle physics.The Higgs is in the Standard Model. The Standard Model is the deepest known understanding of reality. There's a very good reason why many believe the Higgs particle exists: the Standard Model is a huge experimental success, but minus the Higgs particle, it falls apart. As far as we can tell, for a particle to have a mass, a Higgs must be there.The Higgs is a missing piece of the standard model thought to endow all other particles with mass. Detailed rumors at Peter Woit’s blog Not Even Wrong say that ATLAS has observed a signal of a Higgs particle at 125 GeV with a significance level of 3.5 sigma – with 3 being enough to claim evidence but 5 needed for a discovery, while CMS has seen one at 2.5 sigma. As Geoff Brumfiel’s article “Higgs Hunt Enters Endgame” reports, prior results from particle colliders have all but ruled out the Higgs in the range below 114GeV and above 141GeV.