What is the difference between the dark matter and the higss boson...?

The above is absolutely right, but let me try to make it easier to understand, perhaps.

First of all, both dark matter and the Higgs boson are believed to exist, but neither has actually been observed directly. 'Dark matter' is almost another way of saying 'we don't know'. On the grand scale, matter (galaxies, galaxy clusters) doesn't behave the way it was expected to do. We can estimate the mass of a galaxy by looking at all the stars and gas clouds in it. From the total estimated mass, we can calculate its self-gravity. That is, we can work out how tightly bound those stars and gas clouds are to each other. We can do the same for galaxy clusters, by estimating the masses of the individual galaxies, and hence of the cluster. And so on. The problem is that the sums don't work out. Our best estimates give total masses for these huge objects which don't seem to match observation. They are more tightly gravitationally bound than they 'should be'.

The difference between what we can actually observe, and what seems to be there according to our observations of gravitational effects, was simply called "dark matter", meaning that whatever it was didn't seem to interact with light or other electromagnetic radiation. It doesn't emit light, it doesn't absorb light, it doesn't scatter light. We can't see it, but we feel pretty sure it must be there..

The discrepancy is not small. The amount of dark matter in the universe seems to be many times the amount of matter we can actually detect directly. In fact, 'normal' matter according to the latest estimates makes up only about 5% of the total mass & energy (equivalent, of course, thanks to Einstein's famous equation) of the universe, while dark energy is around a quarter. The rest is 'dark energy', which is another subject altogether.

There are various theories about what dark matter is or might include, but so far they are indeed just theories, with at best very limited evidence.

The Higgs boson is another example of scientists - in this case those who study the universe on the smallest scales - predicting the existence of something they can't (yet) observe directly. The Higgs 'needs to exist' to make sense of the standard model of particle physics. The model says that it must exist, and therefore experimental physicists are very busily trying to find out whether it really does, as a test of the standard theory. We should very soon be able to make the first tentative judgement as to whether it exists (or exists in the form predicted by the theory) or not. A great deal in theoretical physics hangs on the answer.

<QUOTE>the difference between the dark matter and the higss boson...?</QUOTE>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_field

Dark matter is the NAME given to the effect behind the distribution of velocities of stars in galaxies and the phenomenon of gravitational lensing.

The Higgs field is the name of the theoretical mechanism by which particles acquire mass. Since it's a bosonic (i.e. integer spin) quantum field, its quantum is called Higgs boson.

The two things have nothing to do with the other. One was invented in the context of cosmology and galactic astronomy, the other was invented in the context of particle physics.

dark count, simply by fact the effects of dark count are observable and its postulated existence is falsifiable. edit: Dharmah - this isn't any longer what dark count is. i'm no physicist, yet even i will work out your submit gets countless considerable factors incorrect.