Garrett Lisi, snowboarding instructor, surfer dude and math-phys guru, is made much of in the media today (Sunday Times). He has, apparently, discerned in the 248-dimensional E8 group the much-sought-after unification of physics. Words like "new" and "Einstein" are much bandied about, frequently in close conjunction.
However, our much-loved string-theorist-rottweiler Lubos Motl disagrees, in his customarily-amusingly invective-strewn manner, here.
The Wikipedia has an article about it here, as does New Scientist here.
