Science Innovations

Fresh evidence suggests particle discovered in 2012 is the Higgs boson Findings confirm that a particle decays to fermions, as predicted by the Standard Model. Deepak Kumar, MIT News Office   June 22, 2014 Fresh evidence that a new particle discovered in 2012 is the Higgs boson has been unveiled today by an international collaboration led by researchers at MIT. The findings, published in the journal  Nature Physics , confirm that the bosons decay to fermions — a group of particles that includes all leptons and quarks — as predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics. “This is an enormous breakthrough,” says Markus Klute, an assistant professor of physics at MIT and leader of the international effort. “Now we know that particles like electrons get their mass by coupling to the Higgs field, which is really exciting.” In July 2012 researchers from the ATLAS and Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiments at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Researc

Solving the world’s plastic problem Alumna invents continuous, zero-toxic-emission system that converts non recycled plastics into crude oil. Deepak Kumar, MIT News Office   June 20, 2014 Plastic is becoming a major problem worldwide: In 2012, the United States alone produced roughly 32 million tons of plastic waste, while only recycling about 9 percent of its plastic, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. This is because of the growing use of “nonrecycled” plastics, primarily made of polystyrene and polypropylene. Seeing little return value, recyclers toss these plastics into landfills, where they pile up and never decompose. As a result, landfill space is becoming a concern. But now MIT spinout PK Clean, founded by Priyanka Bakaya MBA ’11, aims to end the landfilling of plastic with a cost-effective system that breaks down nonrecycled plastics into oil, while reusing some of the gas it produces to operate. “Plastic comes from oil to begin wit

Thermal Pollution Thermal pollution describes the introduction of waste heat into water bodies such as rivers, estuaries and coastal waters. Although other industries abstract water and then discharge it, the coastal power plants produce the greatest amount of water and thus waste heat. Coastal power stations of up to 1000MW capacity discharge up to 50cumecs (m3 s -1) at elevated temperatures. The effects of that discharge depend on the time and place of discharge and the characteristics of the receiving area. In particular, the effects depend on the ability to disperse and absorb the additional energy. Power stations with a ready supply of cold water, such as those on the coast and in estuaries, use this to condense the steam used to turn the turbines. This flow of direct cooling, as opposed to the use of cooling towers, returns water to an adjacent area up to 10 degrees centigrade above ambient. The fossil and nuclear fuel power plants require this cooling. The high cost-eff