Chemistry - Scientific Breakthroughs (2002-2013)

8/13/2019 Chemistry - Scientific Breakthroughs (2002-2013)

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Scientific Breakthroughs in 2002

Mystery Skull

In July 2002, an international team led by French paleontologist Michel Brunet announced the

discovery of a humanlike skull that may be up to seven million years old, twice as old as anyothers found. The previously unknown ape species, named Sahelanthropus tchadensis, was found

in Chad, in central Africa. The remarkably complete skull was nicknamed Toumai, which

means hope of life in the Goran language. Compared to the famous four-million-year-old

Lucy, Toumai looks more modern and lesschimplike, with a shorter, flatter face and smaller

canine teeth.

Is Toumai a direct ancestor of later hominids, perhaps even modern humans? While some

scientists support this theory, others believe that Toumai was one of various hominids that once

walked, perhaps upright, on the African continent. In this model, evolution looks less like a tree,

with humans and apes branching from a single common ancestor, than a bush in which varioushominids evolved and became extinct. Meanwhile, some rival anthropologists think the skull is

that of an ancient female proto-gorilla.

First Synthetic Virus

U.S. scientists at the State University of New York at Stony Brook have created the first

synthetic virus. Using directions downloaded from the Internet and chemicals obtained from a

mail-order company, they built an apparently identical copy of the poliovirus. When injected into

lab mice, the synthetic virus caused paralysis and then death. The scientists, who published theirfindings in the online journal Science Express in July 2002, said that they undertook the

experiment to prove the alarming fact that a functional pathogenic virus could be constructed

without access to a natural virus.

Is this small step for biochemistry a great leap for bioterrorism? Scientists say that few people

now have the skill to build a synthetic virus, much less one that could be an efficient bioweapon.

The genome of the highly contagious smallpox virus is about 25 times as long as that of the

poliovirus and has a more complex process of replication. But its synthesis may one day be

possible. This being so, the experiment raises questions about the wisdom of ceasing vaccination

when a natural virus has been eradicated.


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Cloning a Rare Breed

A team of European scientists led by Pasqualino Loi of the University of Teramo, Italy,

announced in Oct. 2001 that they had produced the first surviving clone of an endangered

animal. A baby mouflona wild sheep found in Sardinia, Corsica, and Cypruswas created by

extracting DNA from the eggs of two mouflon ewes found dead and injecting it into emptied eggcells from domestic ewes. The resulting embryos were implanted in four domestic ewes, one of

which delivered the mouflon.

The cloned mouflon lamb appears normal and is living at a wildlife center in Sardinia. This

success came on the heels of failed attempts to clone an argali sheep and a gaur ox, both of

which are endangered. Some researchers hope that cloning may one day help preserve

endangered animal populations.

and the Common Cat

After hundreds of cell-transfer procedures and the loss of 86 embryos, a team of scientists at

Texas A&M University found their grail: a calico kitten. The first cloned pet, CC (for Copy

Cat) was born in Dec. 2001 by C-section and appears healthy. Although she is a genetic clone,

CC is not identical with either her genetic calico mother or her surrogate tabby mother; a cat's

markings are determined partly by genetics and partly by the process of fetal development.

Scientists hope their findings may aid endocrinology research as well as endangered wildcats.

However, animal welfare groups concerned with pet overpopulation have decried the project.

The work was funded by Arizona millionaire John Sperling, who dreams of cloning his dog.Sperling is also the founder of Genetic Savings and Clone, a Texas company that hopes to clone

pets for profit.

Dashing Dino

British scientists believe they have proof that a Tyrannosaurus rex ancestor sprinted across

Oxfordshire, England, more than 160 million years ago. The well-preserved footprints, which

extend nearly 600 ft, probably belonged to a two-ton Megalosaurus. At first, the giant beast

seemed to be waddling at about 4 mph. But suddenly, the spacing between its footprints doubledas it broke into a run of 18 mph. Why the change in speed? Perhaps the massive meat-eater laid

eyes on a tasty herbivore.


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Although scientists had evidence that smaller dinosaurs could run, many thought that large

dinosaurs were too heavy and clumsy to move quickly. These tracks may be the best proof yet

that the big guys could gather speed.

Green Ham and Eggs?

What do you get when you cross a pig with some spinach? Healthier porkor so hopes a

research team that has implanted spinach genes into pigs. In Jan. 2002, after three years of

experiments, the team at Kinki University in Osaka, Japan, announced that it has two generations

of pigs that sport the spinach gene. This is the first time that plant genes have functioned

normally in living animals.

The implanted spinach gene, known as FAD2, transforms about 20% of the pigs' saturated fats

into unsaturated fats, making for less fatty meat. But don't expect to see lean green bacon at a

store near youonly about 1% of the pigs in the experiment inherited the spinach gene.

Mars Meteorites

Scientists confirmed in Jan. 2002 that five recently discovered meteorites had fallen from the red

planet. Like most of the other 19 known Mars meteorites, these were found in Antarctica and in

the deserts of Oman and the Sahara, areas with little plant cover that could hide space rocks.

Scientists hope the meteorites will offer clues about whether primitive life once existed on Mars.

Each year about 20,000 meteorites reach Earth, but few are from Mars. The new meteoritesprobably broke off from Mars billions of years ago, after an asteroid collision, and floated

through space until landing on Earth.

A New New Yorker

A centipede of a new genus and species was discovered in a pile of leaf litter in New York's

Central Park. At 10.3 mm (about .4 in.) long, the pale yellow creature may be the world's

smallest centipede. Nevertheless, it has an above-average 41 pairs of legs. Formally known as

Nannarrup hoffmani, it appears to be more closely related to Asian centipedes than native ones,

suggesting that, like many denizens of Manhattan, it is an immigrant, perhaps having arrived in

potted soil.


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Plants in Space?

In spring 2002 the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA began testing a machine that could

make it possible to cultivate plants in outer space. Developed by the Denmark-based Rovsing

company, the European Modular Cultivation System (EMCS) centers on a climate chamber in

which temperature, humidity, air, light, and water can be computer-controlled. The EMCS willbe tested at the International Space Station in 2003.

The extraterrestrial hothouse isn't just a high-tech gardening gadgetit may yield new evidence

about the effect of gravity on plant growth. And more importantly, it could someday provide

astronauts on long missions a means of producing their own food crops.

Tropical Colorado

Although Colorado is ravaged by drought today, 64 million years ago it may have been home toa lush rainforest. Excavations at Castle Rock, a site south of Denver, have yielded fossils of

tropical-looking blooms, giant fronds, and trees 6 ft acrossmore than 100 kinds of flora in all,

double the variety found in many Brazilian rainforests today. Scientists believe the plants were

nurtured in a hot, humid climate with an annual rainfall of some 100 in. A vast inland sea may

have provided some of the moisture.

This rainforest flourished only a million years after the dinosaurs and most other life on Earth

died out, probably as the result of an asteroid collision. Scientists had previously thought that it

took plant life about 10 million years to recover from the devastation. The Castle Rock fossils

suggest that recovery, at least in some areas, may have been astonishingly quick.

Robo-Rats

Other rats have navigated obstacle courses, but five at the State University of New York did so

by remote controland, reportedly, enjoyed it. A research team implanted electrodes into

pleasure-sensing zones of the rats' brains, as well as the zones that register obstacles near their

whiskers. Using radio signals transmitted by computer, the scientists guided the rats by

stimulating touch signals near their whiskers and rewarding them with electrical pulses, which

team leader Sanjiv Talwar described as producing a burst of happiness. The whiskery robotsskirted ledges, climbed ladders, and explored rubble via commands issued up to 1,640 ft away.

Researchers believe that the rats, by accessing areas humans and machines cannot reach, could

someday aid search-and-rescue missions, minefield clearing, and, ironically, pest control. The

project was inspired in part by rescue efforts following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and received

funding from the U.S. military.


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The age of the universe has now been accurately determinedwith just a 1% margin of error

as 13.7 billion years old (previous estimates ranged between 820 billion years old). The birth of

stars has been pinpointed to just 200 million years after the Big Bang, a surprise to most

scientists (predictions had ranged from 500 million to 1 billion years after the cosmos formed).

The WMAP image also revealed the contents of the universe: only 4% is made up of atoms, or

the physical universe as we know it. The remainder is made up of poorly understood substances:

dark energy (73%) and dark matter (23%). These findings are consistent with the Big Bang and

inflation theories, which assert that the universe materialized in a big bang and immediately

began cooling and expanding. I think every astronomer will remember where they were when

they heard these results, said John Bahcall, a Princeton University astrophysicist. I certainly

will. This announcement represents a rite of passage for cosmology from speculation to precision

science.

Violent Gamma Rays Apprehended

The mystery of gamma-ray burststhe universe's most powerful explosions, which release as

much energy as a billion trillion sunshas baffled scientists ever since they were first identified

in 1973. Lasting only seconds and appearing at random, these maddeningly unpredictable flashes

of astounding energy eluded the watchful eyes of the world's scientiststhat is, until the early

hours of March 29, 2003, when a satellite finally caught a particularly brazen one in flagrante

delicto. This gamma-ray burst was particularly long-lasting (30 seconds), bright (a trillion times

more luminous than the Sun), and tantalizingly close (just 2 billion, as opposed to the usual 10

12 billion, light-years away). The afterglow continued for an unprecedented two weeks, a lucky

break that finally gave scientists the evidence they had been looking for.

Gamma-ray bursts, it turns out, are none other than supernovaeexplosions associated with the

violent deaths of massive stars, something that many scientists had suspected but could not

prove. We've been searching for a direct link for decades, and we finally got it, said NASA's

Donald Kniffen. Astronomer Brian Lee of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory registered

relief that the long hunt is finally over: It just leaves one slightly stunned to be looking for an

answer for 12 years, have so many hints and false guesses, and then one day just have the

answer. There are still lots of questions, but no one is guessing about the main one any more.

Precocious Planet

The Hubble telescope has detected the oldest known planetand it appears to have been formed

billions of years earlier than astronomers thought possible. Nicknamed Methuselah after the aged

biblical patriarch, the planet is an astonishing 12.7 billion years old. In contrast, all other known

planets (including our own) were created about 8 billion years later, roughly 4.5 billion years


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ago. Methuselah's age is causing astronomers to reevaluate the prevalent theory of planet

formation, which argues that the early universe did not contain sufficient heavy elements (e.g.,

carbon, silicon, and oxygen) to allow for planets to form. But Methuselah defies this theory,

having debuted when the primordial universe had only one-thirtieth of the heavy elements

existing when our own solar system was born.

160,000 Years Ago, Our Forefathers

Three fossilized skulls discovered near the Ethiopian village of Herto in 1997 have now been

identified as the oldest known remains of modern humans. Assigned to a new human subspecies

called Homo sapiens idaltu (idaltu means elder in the Afar language of Ethiopia), the skulls are

estimated to be about 160,000 years olda good 50,000 years older than any previously

discovered Homo sapiens. The Herto discovery helps resolve two major debates in paleontology:

whether humans are related to Neanderthals and whether all modern humans originated in Africaor developed simultaneously in other regions of the world. These skulls suggest that modern

humans existed thousands of years before the Neanderthals evolved in Europe, which would

confirm that Homo sapiens neanderthalis was not a rung on the evolutionary ladder leading to

Homo sapiens sapiens (that's us) but an entirely separate offshoot of hominid that eventually

went extinct. The Herto find also supports the Out of Africa hypothesis, which contends that

all modern humans developed within Africa and then migrated elsewhere, and refutes the

multiregional hypothesis, which claims that modern humans developed in various parts of the

world at roughly the same time. The earliest human fossils found outside Africa are much

younger than the 160,000-year-old Herto skulls. Berkeley paleoanthroplogist Tim White, one of

the find's principal scientists, is convinced that Herto is the critical missing data that supportsthe Out of Africa theory. All people, he contends, every one of us living today, is ultimately

African.

A Younger Mungo

After years of contentious debate, scientists have finally agreed on the age of Mungo Man,

Australia's oldest Homo sapien discovery. Originally thought to be 62,000 years old, new testing

released in Feb. 2003 has definitively shaved 22,000 years off his age. The consensus was

unanimousMungo Man was buried about 42,000 years ago, says geologist Jim Bowler of the

University of Melbourne, who discovered Mungo Man in 1974 in the dry bed of Lake Mungo in

New South Wales. Mungo Man is the oldest ritually buried skeleton in the worldhis body was

painted with ochre.


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Mungo Man's revised age is not merely a victory for the advancement of scientific testing, but it

makes also an important contribution to the theories of human evolution. Had Mungo Man been

62,000 years old as originally determined, the multiregionalist view of human development

would have received an important boost. Multiregionalists maintain that an early human

ancestor, Homo erectus, left Africa between 1 and 2 million years ago and then evolved into

modern Homo sapiens in various regions of the world. Since, as most paleontologists agree,

early humans could not have migrated swiftly enough from Africa to arrive in Australia before

50,000 years ago, a 62,000-year-old Mungo suggests that modern humans had evolved

independently in Australia. But a sprightly 42,000-year-old Mungo lends support to the Out of

Africa hypothesis (the more prevalent view among paleontologists) that anatomically modern

humans left Africa and arrived in Australia around 50,000 years ago. Mungo Man's Homo sapien

ancestors from Africa would have had plenty of time to make their way to far-flung Australia

before young Mungo appeared on the scene.

It's a BirdIt's a Dino It's Microraptor!

Scientists have uncovered the fossil of a new species of flying dinosaur in northeastern China

thought to have existed 120 million years ago. Discovered in Feb. 2003, it is the first dinosaur

ever found with four wings. The Chinese team that found the dinosaur has named it Microraptor

gui, after Chinese paleontologist Gu Zhiwei. The creature may have lived in trees, perhaps

gliding from branch to branch. Related to the Tyrannosaurus rex, though much smallerfrom

head to tail the tiny raptor measures just 30 inchesit resembles a flying squirrel more than a

formidable carnivore. Scientists hope Microraptor gui may prove the link between dinosaurs and

birdssome scientists have hypothesized that birds evolved directly from dinosaurs, but thus farthere hasn't been enough evidence to prove this. It is a beautiful mix of dinosaur and birdit's

so unique, commented paleontologist Nick Czaplewski of the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum

of Natural History. It's a very interesting critter no matter how it's classified.

T. RexMaybe Not so Tough After All

Paleontologist Jack Horner has challenged conventional notions of T. rex as a savage predator.

Horner argues that T. rex was not a hunter but a scavenger, which puts him more in league with

hyenas and vultures than other ferocious beasts of prey. Horner believes that T. rex was too slow,

its forelegs too short, and its eyes too small to make it an effective predator. Most likely, Horner

maintains, T. rex simply bullied or scared away carnivorous dinosaurs after they had killed their

prey and then stole their food. Horner, a colorful and celebrated paleontologist (Alan Grant, the

scientist in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park, is believed to have been based on him) is apologetic

that his T. rex theory has tarnished the reputation of the kin g of dinosaurs. Almost every kid,

almost everybody in the world, hates the idea of T. rex being a scavenger, said Horner.


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The Dark Side of Dinosaurs

Scientists studying dinosaur bones from Madagascar have discovered a dinosaur who wasn't just

a run-of-the-mill carnivorethe 65-million-year-old Majungatholus atopus, a two-legged

dinosaur from the Cretaceous period, is believed to have feasted on members of its own species.

After examining the jaws and teeth of other contemporaneous Madagascan dinosaurs for likelysuspects, the researchers concluded that this had been a Majungatholus-on- Majungatholus

crime. With these other candidates eliminated, Majungatholus atopus stands accused of

cannibalism and is presumed guilty until proven innocent, which, in my opinion, is unlikely to

happen, said one of the scientists, David Krause of SUNYStony Brook. This is the first

genuine evidence that a dinosaur species practiced cannibalism. But according to the journal

Nature, the Majungatholus was hardly the only cannibal in the animal kingdom, and today

cannibalism is practiced by a variety of creatures, ranging from mice to lions.

Life in the Underground

Far below the ocean floor thrives a world of microbes, according to scientists from Oregon State

University. The scientists drilled 1,000 feet beneath the bottom of the ocean, first through 825

feet of ocean-floor sediment and then through 175 feet of basalt, deep within the Earth's 3.5

million-year-old crust. The samples they collected turned up a profusion of bacterial life within

this seemingly hostile environment. Living amid basalt crevices in hot water reaching 149F

(65C), these microscopic creatures survive on inorganic molecules such as sulphide, hydrogen,

and carbon dioxide (most living beings consume organic molecules). This is one of the best

views we've ever had of this difficult-to-reach location in the Earth's crust and the life forms thatlive in it, said Michael Rappe, one of the researchers. Until now we knew practically nothing

about the biology of areas such as this, but we found about the same amount of bacteria in that

water as you might find in surrounding seawater in the ocean. It was abundant.

Rotting Y Redeemed

In June 2003, scientists published the first comprehensive analysis of the genetic code of the Y

chromosome. Geneticists have always been somewhat dismissive of the Y chromosome, which

provides just 78 genes out of the estimated 30,000 in human DNA and makes few importantcontributions beyond determining gender (females have two X chromosomes; males have an X

and a Y chromosome). Once the size of the X chromosome, which contains about 1,000 genes,

the Y chromosome has been rapidly decaying over the course of human evolution, dwindling to a

mere tenth of its former self. While the X chromosome comes in pairs and uses its partner to

regenerate, the Y stands alone. Consequently, many scientists have subscribed to the rotting Y

theory, which holds that the Y, unable to recombine, will continue to degenerate over the next 5


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million years or so, eventually becoming extinct. But now scientists have gained a new respect

for the Y's ingenuity and powers of survivalwritten off as a degenerate loner, the Y in fact

shows impressive signs of pulling itself up by its bootstraps. The Y chromosome is in fact

capable of repairing its most crucial genes, and it does so all on its own: denied the benefits of

recombining with the X, the Y recombines with itself. According toone of the lead researchers,

Richard K. Wilson of the Genome Sequencing Center at Washington University School of

Medicine in St. Louis, This study shows that the Y chromosome has become very efficient at

preserving its important genes. It's found different ways to do the things chromosomes must do

to evolve, survive, and thrive. The news has gladdened another lead researcher, MIT geneticist

David Page, who considers it his duty to defend the honor of the Y chromosome in the face of a

century of insults.


Sedna Debuts, Rattling Poor Pluto

On March 15, 2004, astronomers confirmed the discovery of the most distant object ever

identified in our solar system. Twice as far from the Sun as any known object, this red mass has

an unusually elliptical orbit that takes a staggering 10,500 years to complete. Officially called

2003 VB12, its discoverers claim that it is the first known object from the long-hypothesized

Oort Cloud, believed to be home to billions of frozen comets. The object's surface temperature is

about minus 400F (minus 240C). Its frigid celestial homeland inspired its informal name,

Sedna, the Inuit goddess of the icy northern oceans. In addition to its unparalleled coldness and

distance, Sedna also distinguishes itself as the largest object identified since Pluto's discovery in1930. About three-quarters of the size of Pluto, it is considered a planetoid (a minor planet or

asteroid). Thought to be composed of rock and ice, it has a reddish hue similar to that of Mars.

In the process of defining Sedna, poor Pluto's fragile standing as a planet has once again come

under attackyou may recall that unpleasant business back in 1999 when rumors circulated in

the press darkly hinting that Pluto was in danger of a demotion. The International Astronomical

Union (IAU) even found it necessary to issue a press release reassuring a distraught public that

no proposal to change the status of Pluto as the ninth planet was in the works. But while the

IAU continues to stand by Pluto, plenty of astronomers would like to wrest it from the company

of its eight planetary brethren, pointing out that Pluto has less family resemblance to sublimeSaturn than to brassy little Sedna. One of Sedna's discoverers, Mike Brown of the California

Institute of Technology, makes a compelling case against Pluto, though coming from a partisan

of the new planetoid, it's not nearly as cold-blooded as you might expect:

Either Pluto is not a planet, or many other things are planets. Which is a better choice? I want

my planets to be more special, not less special, so I favor Pluto not being a planet. Emotionally,

though, I have to admit that I have grown up thinking Pluto is this special odd-ball planet at the


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edge of the solar system. While I now know scientifically that Pluto is less special, it's still hard

to let go.

What with quasars, red giants, and brown dwarfs presumably taking up their time, why are

astronomers still arguing about something as fundamental as whether Pluto deserves to be called

a planet? Astonishingly, there's no official scientific definition of a planet, beyond a fewprinciples: it must orbit a star and be spherical, and it cannot have been subject to internal

nuclear fusion, which would make it a star. Astronomer Gibor Basri of the University of

California, Berkeley, admits, It's something of an embarrassment that we currently have no

definition of what a planet is. People like to classify things. We live on a planet; it would be nice

to know what that was.

Back when astronomers first welcomed Pluto into the solar system, it was thought to be the fifth

largest planet, 12% larger than our own. Not only has sophisticated astronomical measurement

reduced it to ninth place, but given that astronomers have only scratched the surface of the sky

surveying just 15% so farthere are sure to be even bigger, more brazen Sednas in Pluto'sfuture.

Grand Old Galaxy

It's not news among scientists that our galaxy is one of the very oldest in the universe, but until

now researchers were unable to determine just how oldestimates ranged from 10.4 billion to

16 billion years. Now astronomers have been able to narrow down their calculations to within

800 million years of the Milky Way's birth. Give or take a few million, the Milky Way has

reached the grand old age of 13.6 billion years.

The age of the Milky Way is in part gauged by calculating the age of two of its oldest stars

(called A0228 and A2111, part of the globular cluster NGC 6397). Once astronomers determined

these stars were 13.4 billion years old, they knew that the Milky Way was at least as old as these

galactic inhabitants. But while these are the oldest stars that have been discovered in our galaxy,

they are in fact members of a second generation of stars. Were scientists to locate stars from the

very first generation, they would have a far more accurate benchmark with which to measure the

age of the Milky Way.

How do scientists know that stars A0228 and A2111 are old, but not among the oldest? A first-generation star is made up almost exclusively of hydrogen, and has a relatively short, violent life.

When it explodes as a supernova, its death generates the creation of heavier elements. Second-

generation stars, such as A0228 and A2111, are built from those heavier elements.

These two second-generation stars actually reveal a lot more than their own age. One of the

elements they contain is beryllium. Because beryllium is known to increase over time, it works


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as a kind of cosmic clock. It permits astronomers to calculate the interval of time between

when the first generation of stars exploded and synthesized beryllium, and when this second

generation of stars containing beryllium was formed. That interval has been measured to be

about 200 million years. An international team of astronomers used the European Southern

Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT), located in Chile, to make these highly complex

measurements. Just a few years ago, team leader Luca Pasquini remarked, Any observation

like this would have been impossible and just remained an astronomer's dream!

By adding that interval of 200 million years to the age of the two stars (13.4 billion years),

astronomers were able to estimate the age of the first generation of stars in our galaxy13.6

billion yearsand thus at the age of the Milky Way itself. Given that scientists now fix the age

of the universe at 13.7 billion years, that makes us the proud denizens of one of the most

established and venerable of galaxies.

Gone Fishing

A partial inventory of the latest expedition of the Census of Marine Life (CoML), which in the

summer of 2004 ventured into one of the least explored regions of our oceans, revealed 180

species of mid-water fish, 87 near-bottom fish, 5 never-before-seen squid and angler fish, and

one astoundingly massive ring of plankton. CoML is a highly ambitious undertaking whose

mission is to record the life within our oceans. The billion-dollar project involves more than 300

scientists from 53 countries and will take a decade to complete. Hundreds of thousands of

animals and plants are to be inventoried, adding tremendously to the 210,000 marine life forms

known to science. Census scientists estimate that perhaps only one-tenth of the life in our oceansis currently accounted for. We haven't spent enough time exploring our own planet, says

Barbara A. Block, a Johns Hopkins professor involved in the census, We don't like to tell

anyone we're ignorant about the oceans, but we are.

The most recent expedition of the census was the Norway-led MAR-ECO voyage that explored

the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Ridge over two months in the summer of 2004. The 3,728-mile-long

Mid-Atlantic Ocean Ridge stretches from Iceland to the Azores, a range of volcanic undersea

mountains whose height and length rival anything on dry land. It is one of the least explored

areas on the planet. Scientists were surprised to find it so densely populated and diverse. Among

the most exotic of their discoveries was an Aphyonus gelatinosus, a fish covered with a pink andblue gelatinous layer; and a deep-sea angler fish, from whose head protrudes something

resembling a glowing fishing rod, which is used to lure its prey conveniently close to its mouth.

Another unusual find was a tremendously wide ring of plankton that spanned 6.2 miles. And

census scientists are still puzzling over one pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of

silent seas. After discovering a series of mysterious, evenly spaced, 5-cm-wide holes that looked


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Betting on Black Holes

In July 2004, celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking announced that for the past 30 years he had

been wrong about black holes. What's more, his error cost him a long-standing bet, obliging him

to present a baseball encyclopedia to John Preskill of the California Institute of Technology. On

the bright side, Hawking's black hole recantation had a rather exciting side-effect: I think, heventured, I have solved a major problem in theoretical physics.

Formed from a collapsed star, a black hole is a cosmic vacuum cleaner, whose gravitational

pull is so strong that it sucks up everything in its way. In 1976, Hawking theorized that black

holes emit random radiation (later named Hawking radiation) and lose mass until they

eventually evaporate without a trace. All the matter sucked into a black hole, and all

information about it (its quantum mechanical properties), would then be lost forever.

But Hawking's theory contradicts an essential principle of quantum physics: no information can

ever be truly destroyed. Black holes, if Hawking was right, defy the laws of the universe as weknow it. This radical theory, according to Preskill, precipitated a genuine crisis in fundamental

physics. Preskill resisted accepting what became known as the black hole information

paradox, and in 1997 Hawking (along with another colleague) bet him that information

swallowed by a black hole is forever hidden from the outside universe and can never be revealed,

even as the black hole evaporates and completely disappears.

Seven years later, Hawking claims to have solved the very paradox he created. According to his

revised theory, black holes eventually open up, revealing information about what went into

themthe information remains firmly in our universe, Hawking asserted. Preskill was pleased

enough at having won the bet, but acknowledged, I'll be honest, I didn't understand the talk.Neither did most others in the audience of the 17th International Conference on General

Relativity and Gravitation in Dublin, leaving a stunned group of 800 scientists not sure what had

hit them. Hawking's published proof of his revolutionary findings will follow, but in the

meantime, he has paid off his bet to Preskill. The bettors had agreed upon an encyclopedia,

which, unlike a black hole, is something from which information can be recovered at will.

Inanimate, Wheeled, One-Armed Boxes Responsible for Year's Most Exciting Scientific

Discovery

For years, scientists have speculated whether Mars once contained water. The significance of

discovering water on Mars of course meant that the planet may have had the potential to support

life. But despite many tantalizing findings, no definitive evidence had been uncovered. The

landing of two Mars Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, in Jan. 2004, changed all that. The rovers

soon began sending back astonishing images of rippled layers of sediment that scientists

confirmed had once formed the bottom of a sea, as well as evidence of mineral deposits that

could only have been left behind by water. These and other findings confirmed that not only did

Mars once have water, but it had been covered with vast pools of it! The journal Science


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years older, they increase the gap between the emergence of humans in Africa and the much later

Homo sapiens fossils found elsewhere in the world.

The Softer Side of T. Rex

In March paleontologists discovered the existence of soft tissue in a 68-million-year-old

Tyrannosaurus rex fossil. An unprecedented find in a prehistoric creaturescientists had

assumed no such tissue could survive more than 100,000 yearsthe soft tissue included cells

and blood vessels.

The discovery was a serendipitous one. Because this T. rex fossil was located in a remote part of

Montana (the Hell Creek formation, where about two dozen species of dinosaurs have been

found) the fossil had to be removed by helicopter. According to paleontologist Jack Horner, who

participated in the excavation, we actually had to split the thighbone into two pieces to get it

into the helicopter. When his colleague Mary Schweitzer later examined the hollow cavity of

the broken bone in her North Carolina State University lab, she discovered the pliable tissue.

Scientists predict the soft tissue will provide a gold mine of information about the physiology of

dinosaurs.

Examination of the soft tissue has already yielded several exciting revelations. The tissue

included medullary bone, a calcium-enriched substance temporarily present when birds are ready

to produce eggshells and lay eggs. Not only does the presence of medullary bone reveal that this

particular T. rex was female (paleontologists have never before determined the sex of a

dinosaur), but the existence of medullary tissue also supports the widely held theory that modern

birds descended from dinosaurs. According to Schweitzer, it links the reproductive physiology

of dinosaurs to birds very closely. It indicates that dinosaurs produced and shelled their eggs

much more like modern birds than like modern crocodiles. Horner commented that this is

another piece to the puzzle and there are a lot of them. Anyone who would argue that birds and

dinosaurs are not relatedfrankly, I'd put them in the Flat Earth Society group.

Mind over Matter

In 2001 Matt Nagle, a 25-year-old former football star from Weymouth, Mass., was stabbed in

an unprovoked fight that severed his spinal cord. Paralyzed from the neck down, he lost even the

ability to breathe on his own. But over the last year, this quadriplegic has performed a seemingly

supernatural feat: he can control machines through his thoughts. Thanks to a chip implanted in

his brain, Nagle has the ability to convey simple, motor-related thoughts to a computer, which

then carries out his actions. He can now change channels on his TV, turn lights on and off, and

play computer games simply by thinking about doing these things. In early 2005 he became the


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first human to reach and grasp objects using an artificial hand by thinking about moving his own

paralyzed hand.

In June 2004 surgeons implanted a sensor called the Braingate Neural Interface System in the

part of Nagle's brain that controls motor activity. Braingate channels the electrical signals from

the brain that normally move through the spinal cordwhich in Nagle's case is irreparablydamagedand sends them to wires attached to his skull. The wires convey the brain signals to a

computer, which then interprets them and carries out the task.

Nagle is one of the pioneers in the exploding field of neuro-cybernetics, the science of using

machines to carry out commands of the human brain. But he was not the first to turn his thoughts

into action. Since 1996, a number of paralyzed patients have learned to move a computer cursor

and even type messagesalbeit laboriouslyjust by thinking about doing so. In the mid-1990s

only a handful of labs were devoted to developing brain-machine interface (BMI) technology;

today there are more then 60 labs throughout the world. Some are exploring systems that detect

brain waves from outside the body; others, like Braingate, work with brain implants. Some of themost promising experiments have benefitted patients with locked-in syndrometheir brain

functions normally but they've been robbed of all muscle control. BMI technology has allowed

them to use their thoughts to regain rudimentary communication with the outside world.

The lead scientist on the Braingate experiment, John Donoghue of Brown University, believes

that Nagleand eventually other paralyzed peoplewill eventually regain some control over

their environments through BMI technology. Ultimately, Donoghue hopes they'll regain control

over their paralyzed limbs. The technology required is very complex. There are still many

issues to be resolved. But it's here. It's going to happen. Just look at Matt. This year four more

volunteers will be added to the Braingate study, and researchers eventually hope to make theimplant wireless. At the moment, Nagle can only use the BMI equipment a few times a week

because it requires the help of technicians.

The researchers were fortunate to have selected the enormously resolute and optimistic Nagle as

their first volunteer. Nagle had to spend months practicing intensively before the computers

responded properly to his brain waves. And not only was there the real possibility that he might

spend fruitless years involved in a failed experiment, but the brain implant also involved the risk

of physical damage and psychiatric problems. My mother was scared of wha t might happen, but

what else can they do to me? Nagle commented. I was in a corner, and I had to come out

fighting.


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Earthlings Attack Comet

For the past 138 years, since its discovery in 1867, Comet Tempel 1 has had distant but

harmonious relations with the inhabitants of planet Earth. But on July 4, somewhere between

Mars and Jupiter, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft blasted a gaping hole into the comet. The

crash emitted the energy of 4.5 tons of TNT, releasing a tremendous plume of dust and gases.There is a comet up in the sky wondering, what in the heck just happened, commented Charles

Elachi, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In an astonishingly tricky mission, Deep

Impact traveled 268 million miles over six months to wreak havoc on the comet. According to

NASA scientist Don Yeomans, We hit it just exactly where we wanted to. More than 80

million people visited the NASA website in the 24 hours following the blast to witness the

cosmic fireworks.

NASA assures us that there is, in fact, something scientifically redeemable about such violence.

After our Sun and planets formed 4.6 billion years ago, comets were believed to have been

formed out of the remaining dust and gases. By blasting a crater into the surface of Tempel 1 anduncovering its pristine interior, scientists hope to examine the primordial remnants of our solar

system to gain insight into its formation. Some data is already available (for example, comets,

once thought to resemble dirty snowballs, are in fact more like snowy dirtballs), but it will

take years until the more significant findings become available.

A Tenth Planet? Or Just Eight?

In recent years astronomers have discovered that our solar system is a great deal more crowded

than we imagined. In 2004 alone, a dozen new moons circling Saturn were identified. Today's

sophisticated telescopes have also uncovered a host of large objects inhabiting the frozen edges

of our solar systemVaruna (2000), Ixion (2001), Quaoar (2002), and Sedna (2004) are among

the most spectacular of what are called Kuiper Belt Objects (KBO), masses of rock and ice that

appear beyond Neptune.

But just when we've grown accustomed, perhaps even a little jaded, by the steady parade of new

moons and KBOs discovered each year, astronomers have succeeded in truly rattling our notion

of the solar system: in July 2005 the California Institute of Technology and NASA announced

the existence of a tenth planet. About 9 billion miles from the Sun resides 2003 UB313,

estimated to be about one-and-a-half times the size of Pluto. We are 100% confident that this is

the first object bigger than Pluto ever found in the outer solar system, said Caltech astronomer

Michael A. Brown, one of the three scientists responsible for the discovery.


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The assertion of a tenth planet, however, is not without controversy, reviving the debate about

what defines a planet and again calling into question whether the diminutive Pluto fits the bill.

Some scientists consider the newly discovered objectalong with Plutonothing more than a

glorified Kuiper Belt Object. Alan Boss, a planet-formation theorist at the Carnegie Institution of

Washington, contends that to just call them planets does an injustice to the big guys in the solar

system. But Brown maintains, Pluto has been a planet for so long that the world is comfortable

with that. It seems to me a logical extension that anything bigger than Pluto and farther out is a

planet. When this long-standing controversy is finally resolved, it seems we will have either ten

planets in our solar system, or just eight.

Given that 2003 UB313 is significantly larger than Pluto, why did it take so long to discover?

According to Brown, its orbit lies 45 degrees from the plane on which the nine planets orbit the

Sun, and until now nobody look[ed] that high up in the sky. The object is so bright that even

amateur astronomers can spot it fairly easily.

The object was first identified on Jan. 8, 2005, and Brown and his team had planned onannouncing the discovery once they had accumulated more definitive data on the object's size,

mass, and composition. But when someone hacked the team's website, threatening to preempt

them, Brown and the others rushed to get the news out on July 29. Brown has already submitted

a name for the planet to the International Astronomical Union, but he plans to keep it a secret

until it is officially accepted.


Stardust Memories

After a seven-year, three-billion-mile expedition through the solar system, NASAs Stardust

spacecraft capsule landed in the Arizona desert on Jan. 15, 2006, with an impressive bounty: a

canister full of tens of thousands of comet particles and a smattering of interstellar dust, the first

such samples ever collected.

Stardust captured the comet particles from Comet Wild-2 (pronounced Vilt) when the spacecraft

flew within 149 miles of it on Jan. 2, 2004, roughly in the vicinity of Jupiter. The spacecrafts

collector swept up particles left in the comets wake, preserving them in a silicon material called

aerogel, which cushioned and protected the particles on their long journey to Earth.

The Stardust samples offer a time capsule to our primordial past. Comets contain some of the

oldest material in the solar system, formed out of the remaining dust and gases left over after the

solar systems creation 4.6 billion years ago. Principal investigator Donald Brownlee has

commented that this has been a fantastic opportunity to collect the most primitive material in

the solar system. We fully expect some of the comet particles to be older than the Sun. Michael


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Zolensky, another Stardust scientist, offers a vivid sense of how intimately connected comets are

to an understanding of life on Earth: Its like looking at our great-great grandparents. Much of

Earth's water and organicsyou know, the molecules in our bodiesperhaps came from

comets. So these samples will tell usbasically, where our atoms and molecules came from, and

how they were delivered to Earth, and in what amount.

The samples have already defied their expectations. Some contain minerals that could only have

been formed at enormously high temperatures. But comets are icy balls thought to have formed

far from the Sun, in the outer, frigid regions of the solar system. Brownlee noted that when

these minerals formed they were either red-hot or white-hot grains, and yet we collected them at

a comet [from] the Siberia of the solar system. According to Zolensky, It suggests that, if these

are really from our own sun, they've been ejected outballistically outall the way across the

entire solar system and landed out there.We can't give you all the answers right now. It's just

great we have new mysteries to worry about now.

About 150 scientists around the world are currently studying the comet samples, while an armyof amateur scientists have turned their attention to the stardust also collected during the mission.

About 65,000 volunteers from the general public will be enlisted to help find images of

interstellar dust embedded in the aerogel. The volunteers of Stardust@home will search images

delivered to them on the Internet, using so-called virtual microscopes. While the comet dust is

visible to the naked eye, the bits of stardust are only a few microns in diameter. Just 40 to 100

grains of stardust are thought to have been collected, and searching for these particles has been

described by the NASA team like tracking down 45 ants on a football field.

Neither Fish nor Tetrapod

The most complete fossils ever found of a transitional fish with limbs. (Credit: The Academy of

Natural Sciences/Ted Daeschler)

Several times a year popular science articles breathlessly announce the discovery of a missing

link, but in the case of the recently identified fossils of an odd creatu re hailing from the

Canadian territory of Nunavut, this overused term is compellingly accurate. In an April 2006

issue of Nature, paleontologists revealed the discovery of a 375-million-year-old transitional

species whose anatomical traits bridge the gap between fish and tetrapod (four-legged

vertebrate). Nicknamed the fishapod, its formal name is Tiktaalik roseae, from the Inuit name for

a large shallow-water fish.

Tiktaalik joins several other significant transitional fossilsthe most famous of which is

Archaeopteryx, the part-bird, part-reptile considered the missing link between birds and

dinosaurs, which was discovered in 1860, just two years after Darwin published The Origin of

Species.


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But in April 2006, a team of scientists reported success on a more modest ocean drilling project,

which has yielded some impressive findings. Researchers involved in the Integrated Ocean

Drilling Program (IODP) managed to drill nearly a mile into the ocean crust, collecting the first

intact sample ever of all the crusts various layers, including the very deepest layer, composed of

igneous rock called gabbro. Gabbro has been discovered during other ocean drilling projectsin

these cases, geological disturbances had shifted the gabbro closer to the oceans surface. But this

is the first instance in which gabbro has been found in situ.

The drilling of Hole 1256D, as the 3,796-foot-deep bore hole is unceremoniously named, took

place 400 miles west of Costa Rica in the Pacific Ocean, with the 120 scientists housed aboard

the research ship Joides Resolution. The location was selected because the ocean crust is thinner

there than in most parts of the world. The project began in 2002 and involved three separate

voyages, nearly six months of drilling at sea, and twenty-five ten-inch-wide, state-of-the-art drill

bits. The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program is an international marine program spearheaded by

the U.S. and Japan, and involves 18 other countries. It's considered the world's largest earth

science program.

Some scientists have dubbed this intact sample the holy grail to unlocking the secrets of the

ocean crust, which in turn will bring broader revelations about our planet. According to Jeff Fox,

the director of IODP, The record of the earths history is written in greater clarity in the

sediments of rocks on the sea floor than anywhere else.

Million-Dollar Math Problem

In 2000, the Clay Mathematics Institute of Cambridge, Mass., identified seven math problems it

deemed the most important classic questions that have resisted solution over the years. Several

of them had in fact resisted solution for more than a centurythe Riemann Hypothesis, for

example, has confounded mathematicians since its formulation in 1859. To create a bit of frisson

among the public for the so-called Millennium Prize Problems, the Clay Institute announced it

would offer a one-million-dollar reward apiece for solutions to the problems. While a layperson

might have a tough time penetrating the quantum physics behind the Yang-Mills existence and

mass gap problem, they have no difficulty understanding the meaning of the number 1 followed

by 6 zeros and preceded by a dollar sign.

Seven years after the Clay Institute announced its challenge, the century-old Poincar

Conjecture, one of the thorniest of the millennium problems, is thought to have been solved.

Ever since French mathematician Henri Poincar posed the conjecture in 1904, at least a half-

dozen eminent mathematiciansand many lesser oneshave tried and failed to crack the

problem. But a series of three papers on the conjecture posted online in 2002 and 2003 by

Russian Grigory Perelman have successfully withstood intense scrutiny by the mathematical


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community for the past four yearstwice the number of years of public examination required by

the Clay Institute.

Poincar's Conjecture deals with the branch of math called topology, which is the study of

shapes, spaces, and surfaces. The Clay Institute offers this deceptively friendly-sounding

doughnut-and-apple explication of the bedeviling problem:

If we stretch a rubber band around the surface of an apple, then we can shrink it down to a point

by moving it slowly, without tearing it and without allowing it to leave the surface. On the other

hand, if we imagine that the same rubber band has somehow been stretched in the appropriate

direction around a doughnut, then there is no way of shrinking it to a point without breaking

either the rubber band or the doughnut. We say the surface of the apple is simply connected,

but that the surface of the doughnut is not. Poincar, almost a hundred years ago, knew that a

two-dimensional sphere is essentially characterized by this property of simple connectivity, and

asked the corresponding question for the three-dimensional sphere (the set of points in four-

dimensional space at unit distance from the origin).

The resolution of Poincar's Conjecture will have enormous implications for our understanding

of relativity and the shape of space.

But while mathematicians are hailing this as potentially the biggest breakthrough since Andrew

Wiles solved Fermat's Last Theorem in 1994, Grigory Perelman himself has taken a decidedly

standoffish attitude to his accomplishment. He has shown no interest in collecting the million-

dollar prize, and instead of publishing his solution in a refereed mathematics publication of

worldwide repute, as the Clay Institute requires, he simply published his papers online. His

proof never even mentions Poincar by name and is presented in such a sketchy and ellipticalfashion that it resembles guidelines for proving the conjecture more than an actual proof. In

2006, three groups of mathematicians published papers that fill in the gaps left by Perelman's

unorthodox solution. Mathematicians disagree, however, as to whether any of these papers

actually add substantially to solving of the conjecture or simply explicate Perelman's work.

On Aug. 22, the International Congress of Mathematicians awarded Perelman the enormously

prestigious Fields medal for his solution to the Poincar Conjecture as well as for other

significant contributions. Perelman refused to attend the conference and rejected the award.

Serge Rukshin, Perelman's former teacher, described him as a devoted scientist in the pure

sense of the word. He believes that the most important thing is that the problem is solved.Perelman hasn't entirely ruled out the Millennium Prize, however, commenting that Im not

going to decide whether to accept the prize until it is offered.


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Leopard Species Discovered

Imagine spending your entire life being confused with an entirely different species. Thats what

happened to the clouded leopard of Borneo and Sumatra. The animal, the biggest predator onBorneo, was long assumed to be the same species as the clouded leopard native to mainland

Southeast Asia. Talk about an identity crisis!

Forty Differences Between Species

In March 2007, scientists at the U.S. National Cancer Institute announced that genetic testing had

determined that there are about 40 differences between the two species. For example, the clouded

leopard of Borneo and Sumatra has darker fur and smaller cloud markings than the mainland

leopard. The spots inside the clouds on the island clouded leopard are more distinct than thoseon the mainland animal. The differences between the cousins are as marked as those between

lions, tigers, and jaguars.

Who said a leopard can never change its spots? For over a hundred years we have been looking

at this animal and never realized it was unique,said Carter S. Roberts, president and CEO of the

World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Where in the world is Borneo?

According to the WWF, between 5,000 and 11,000 clouded leopards live on Borneo and another

3,000 to 7,000 inhabit Sumatra. Borneo is the third-largest island in the world. About two-thirds

of Borneo is part of Indonesia; the rest is shared by Malaysia and Brunei. Sumatra is an

Indonesian island.

Most scientists agree that there are about 1 million species of animals on Earth. An estimated

10,000 species of animals are discovered each year. In fact, in 2006 alone 30 unique species of

fish, two species of tree frogs, three species of trees, and 16 ginger species were discovered in

the Heart of Borneo, a rainforest thats about as big as Kansas.


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Corals

Since scientists discovered that corals reproduce by synchronous spawning in 1981, they have

been searching for its catalyst. In October 2007, Australian, Israeli, and American scientists

discovered the trigger for the mysterious procreation habits of coral.

Corals reproduce both sexually and asexually, and each individual coral, called a polyp, may

reproduce both ways within its lifetime. Coral live in colonies that may consist of one or both

sexes.

At least a third of corals in the Great Barrier Reef reproduce by synchronous spawning, a process

in which the eggs and sperm are released into the water at the same time. Eventually the sperm

and eggs merge together and create embryonic corals that sink to the ocean floor, and, if

conditions are right, form new colonies. Synchronous spawning is dependent on the time of year,

water temperature, and tidal and lunar cycles. Spawning happens in the spring during the third

through six nights following a full moon, layering the sea so completely with eggs that they arevisible to the human eye.

Until 1981, corals were thought to be primitive creatures without a brain or eyes and knew

nothing of their environment. Graduate students at James Cook University changed that thinking

when they discovered a mass spawning in the Great Barrier Reef. Over the last 25 years, the

spawning rituals have been observed by scuba divers and scientists, and documented on PBS by

photographer Al Giddings.

Mystery Solved

Corals have primitive photoreceptors, idea discovery first introduced by Israeli scientist, Dr.

Oren Levy. In October 2007, scientists discovered that these photoreceptors have photosensitive

chemicals that respond to moonlight like human lovers to each other. The photoreceptor response

to the Moon triggers the largest spawning event on Earth. The Moon functions like a clock for

corals, alerting them when to release sperm and eggs. The discovery is a big step forward for

coral researchers and also sheds light on evolutionary questions. Corals emerged over 500

million years ago, which means we now know light receptors evolved much earlier in the

development of animals than was previously thought.

Stem Cells

In November 2007, scientists reported that they could use human skin cells to create embryonic

stem cells. Stem cells have the remarkable ability to grow indefinitely, serving as a sort of repair


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system for the body. They can potentially divide without limit into any one of the 220 types of

cells in the body to replace other cells.

The discovery could mean an unlimited supply of stem cells without embryonic destruction,

which would eliminate the ethical controversy and limited funds for research. With ethical

problems out of the way, more resources will become available for stem cell research.

Generating stem cells could lead to new disease treatments by taking skin cells from a person

with an illness and generating more stem cells that could be observed from the earliest stages of

development. By watching a disease as it develops, scientists could potentially design drugs to

not only treat it but also prevent it.

With stem cells produced from a patients own skin cells, it is possible to create tissue that would

not be rejected by their immune systemthe same result would require cloning with embryonic

stem cells.

Airbus A380

Developed as the most spacious passenger aircraft to date, Airbus A380 took off for the first time

in 2007. With 6,460 square feet of floor space, two floors, and a 262-foot wingspan, the 560-ton

aircraft is the largest passenger aircraft ever built.

Designers of the A380 set out to make the plane as environmentally sound and efficient as

possible. The A380 optimizes energy and water consumption and produces little waste and

emissions. The jumbo Airbus A380 burns 17% less fuel per seat than a Boeing 747-400.

The Features

Singapore Airlines A380 is powered by four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines. There are 471

seats and 12 private suites in the front half of the planes lower deck. The space, which

maximizes privacy, was designed by Jean-Jacques Coste, a French yacht designer. The suites

have adjustable leather seats and separate beds that fold out to a full-size mattress with linens

designed by Givenchy. There are 60 business-class seats on the upper deck, and 399 economy-

class seats throughout the back half of the upper and lower decks of the plane. For entertainment,passengers have LCD video screens that play a selection of 100 movies and 180 television

channels. In addition, passengers have access to USB ports and laptop computer accessibility.

The A380 was unveiled in Toulouse, France, on October 15, 2007. Singapore Airlines carried its

first paying A380 passengers on Oct. 25, 2007, on a special flight from Singapore to Sydney. It

is the first airline to fly the A380 on regular scheduled service. A380 is can take off and land at

60 major airports throughout the world.


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New Lab on ISS

In February, the space shuttle Atlantis delivered the Columbus science laboratory to the

International Space Station (ISS). The $2 billion laboratory has room for three astronauts and tenexperimentation racks that can simulate gravity for biotechnical and medical research. For more,

see NASA Ships and Space Stations slideshow.

Polar Bears

Dirk Kempthorne, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, announced in May that the polar bear has been

listed as threatened, thus protected by the Endangered Species Act. The protection is somewhat

watered down since the Interior Department included provisions allowing for continued oil and

gas development in polar bear habitats. By 2008, the estimated number of polar bears left in thewild was about 20,000.

Reducing Greenhouse Emissions

The Group of 8 nations U.S., Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada, and Russia

set goals in July that by 2050 they will have reduced by half the amount of greenhouse gases

each country emits into the environment. The agreement was criticized by environmental groups

for being vague and lacking specific targets for reducing emissions. There was also confusion

about what emissions baseline countries will use to meet their 50% reduction goal. Some believediscussions of a 50% reduction by 2050 should be based on emission levels in 1990. Others

argue the baseline should be based on current levels.

Trans-Fat Ban

California became the first U.S. state to ban the use of trans fats by restaurants and food retailers.

Trans fats, or hydrogenated oils, are used in processed foods to increase their shelf life. Trans

fats are also linked to coronary heart disease. California has 88,000 restaurants that will be

affected when this law goes into effect by 2010. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

said the new law was a "strong step toward creating a healthier future." Any restaurant violating

the new law will incur fines from $25 to $1,000.


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China's First Spacewalk

In September, Zhai Zhigang became the first Chinese astronaut to perform a spacewalk for

China's burgeoning space program. Zhai spent 20 minutes performing an extra-vehicular activity

(EVA) in space, enough time to venture out of the craft in order to retrieve a test sample placed

outside the orbiter. This achievement makes China the third nation to successfully performEVAs, after the United States and Russia. See this slideshow about firsts in space for more

information.

World's Largest Science Experiment

The world's largest and most powerful particle collider was activated for the first time in

September. Built outside of Geneva, Switzerland by CERN Laboratories, an organization funded

by 20 nations, the Large Hadron Collider is the most expensive and sophisticated science project

ever undertaken. Physicists hope the LHC will help solve such mysteries as the origin of mass.


Ultra-Rare Megamouth Shark Found, Eaten

In March, the 41st megamouth shark ever found went from swimming in Philippine waters to

simmering in coconut milk.

Ancient Gem-Studded Teeth Show Skill of Early Dentists

The glittering "grills" of some hip-hop stars aren't exactly unprecedented. Sophisticated dentistry

allowed Native Americans to add bling to their teeth as far back as 2,500 years ago, a May study

said.

Alien Giant Snakes Threaten to Invade Up to 1/3 of U.S.

Nine giant snakes could be on the verge of causing ecological catastrophe if they establish

themselves in the U.S. wildat least two have already set up shop in Floridaaccording to an

October report.


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Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Simulating the gyrations that proteins make as they fold has been a combinatorial nightmare.

Now, researchers have harnessed the power of one of the worlds most powerful computers totrack the motions of atoms in a small, folding protein for a length of time 100 times longer than

any previous efforts.

Quantum Simulator

To describe what they see in the lab, physicists cook up theories based on equations. Those

equations can be fiendishly hard to solve. This year, though, researchers found a short-cut by

making quantum simulatorsartificial crystals in which spots of laser light play the role of ions,

and atoms trapped in the light stand in for electrons. The devices provide quick answers totheoretical problems in condensed matter physics and they might eventually help solve mysteries

such as superconductivity.

Next-Generation Genomics

Faster and cheaper sequencing technologies are enabling very large-scale studies of both ancient

and modern DNA. The 1000 Genomes Project, for example, has already identified much of the

genome variation that makes us uniquely humanand other projects in the works are set to

reveal much more of the genomes function.

RNA Reprogramming

Reprogramming cellsturning back their developmental clocks to make them behave like

unspecialized stem cells in an embryohas become a standard lab technique for studying

diseases and development. This year, researchers found a way to do it using synthetic RNA.

Compared with previous methods, the new technique is twice as fast, 100 times as efficient, and

potentially safer for therapeutic use.

The Return of the Rat

Mice rule the world of laboratory animals, but for many purposes researchers would rather use

rats. Rats are easier to work with and anatomically more similar to human beings; their big

drawback is that methods used to make knockout miceanimals tailored for research by


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having specific genes precisely disableddont work for rats. A flurry of research this year,

however, promises to bring knockout rats to labs in a big way.

Finally, to celebrate the end of the current decade, Science news reporters and editors have taken

a step back from their weekly reporting to take a broader look at 10 of the scientific insights that

have changed the face of science since the dawn of the new millennium. Here are their 10Insights of the Decade:

The Dark Genome

Genes used to get all the glory. Now, however, researchers recognize that these protein-coding

regions of the genome account for just 1.5% of the whole. The rest of the genome, including

small coding and non-coding RNAspreviously written off as junkis proving to be just as

important as the genes.

Precision Cosmology

Over the past decade, researchers have deduced a very precise recipe for the content of the

universe, which consists of ordinary matter, dark matter, and dark energy, as well as instructions

for putting it all together. These advances have transformed cosmology into a precision science

with a standard theory that now leaves very little wiggle room for other ideas.

Ancient Biomolecules

The realization that biomolecules like ancient DNA and collagen can survive for tens of

thousands of years and provide important information about long-dead plants, animals, and

humans has provided a boon for paleontology. Analysis of these tiny time machines can now

reveal anatomical adaptations that skeletal evidence simply cant provide, such as the color of a

dinosaurs feathers or how woolly mammoths withstood the cold.

Water on Mars

Half a dozen missions to Mars over the past decade have provided clear evidence that the Red

Planet once harbored enough watereither on it or just inside itto alter rock formations and,

possibly, sustain life. This Martian water was probably present around the time that life was

beginning to appear on Earth, but there is still enough moisture on Mars today to encourage

scientists seeking living, breathing microbes.


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Reprogramming Cells

During the past decade, the notion that development is a one-way street has been turned on its

head. Now, researchers have figured out how to reprogram fully developed cells into so -calledpluripotent cells that regain their potential to become any type of cell in the body. This technique

has already been used to make cell lines from patients with rare diseases, but ultimately,

scientists hope to grow genetically matched replacement cells, tissues, and organs.

The Microbiome

A major shift in the way we view the microbes and viruses that call the human body home has

led researchers to the concept of the microbiomeor the collective genomes of the host and the

other creatures that live on or inside it. Since 90% of the cells in our bodies are actuallymicrobial, scientists are beginning to understand how significantly microbial genes can affect

how much energy we absorb from our foods and how our immune systems respond to infections.

Exoplanets

In the year 2000, researchers were aware of just 26 planets outside our solar system. By 2010,

that number had jumped to 502and still counting. With emerging technologies, astronomers

expect to find an abundance of Earth-like planets in the universe. But for now, the sizes and

orbits of larger planets already discovered are revolutionizing scientists understanding of howplanetary systems form and evolve.

Inflammation

Not long ago, inflammation was known as the simple sidekick to our healing machinery, briefly

setting in to help immune cells rebuild tissue damage caused by trauma or infection. Today,

however, researchers believe that inflammation is also a driving force behind the chronic

diseases that will eventually kill nearly all of us, including cancer, Alzh eimers disease,

atherosclerosis, diabetes, and obesity.


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Metamaterials

By synthesizing materials with unconventional and tunable optical properties, physicists and

engineers have pioneered new ways to guide and manipulate light, creating lenses that defy the

fundamental limits on resolution. Theyve even begun constructing cloaks that can make an

object invisible.

Climate Change

Over the past decade, researchers have solidified some fundamental facts surrounding global

climate change: The world is warming, humans are behind the warming, and the natural

processes of the Earth are not likely to slow that warming. But the next 10 years will determine

how scientists and policymakers proceed with this vital information.

Scientific Breakthroughs 2011

Quantum Computer On A Single CPU

quantum CPUThe 10th place spot goes to Matteo Mariantoni and colleagues for being the first to

implement a quantum version of the Von Neumann architecture found in home computers.

Based on superconducting circuits and integrated on a single chip, the new CPU has been used

to perform two important quantum-computing related algorithms. Its creation helps to move us

closer to the development of practical quantum computers that can solve real-life problems and

help move us into the 21st century.

Neandrathal Genes Survive in Us

neandrathal geneSome of the first genetic evidence that early Homo sapiens mated and

reproduced with Homo neandertalensis was actually introduced back in 2010, but it was findings

of a study published back in July of this year that solidified it.

The study determined that some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals, but

only in people of non-African heritage. Researchers believe that most, if not all, of theinterbreeding between Humans and Neanderthals took place in the Middle East, when modern

humans were migrating out of Africa.


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Potentially Habitable, Earth-Like Planet Found

With a radius 2.4x that of Earth, NASA scientists have confirmed that Kepler-22b is the first

planet weve ever discovered that orbits its sun within the so-called Goldilocks Zone. This

makes it the most Earth-like planet we have discovered.

The Goldilocks Zone is a term that refers to the habitable zone which is the region surrounding

a star in which an orbiting planet could maintain liquid water. It would be not too hot or cold. It

would be just right.

Measuring The Universe With Black Holes

black hole standard candleDarach Watson and colleagues have worked out a way to use

supermassive black holeswhich exist at the center of most galaxiesas standard candles for

making accurate measurements of cosmic distances.

The work is important because these kinds of black holes can be found just about everywhere in

the universe. Unlike the current method of using a specific type of supernovae, the light

produced by these active galactic nuclei endures for long periods of time.

Flushing Senescent Cells

Senescent MiceGerontologists showed in November, that flushing aged, broken-down cells from

the bodies of mice indeed slowed down their aging. This was powerful proof that so-calledcellular senescence did matter.

Though, despite the fact that this same process cannot be performed on people as was performed

on these genetically modified mice, the findings and results could create a whole new generation

of aging research.

Photosynthetic Protein Captured

Photosynthetic ProteinResearchers in Japan have mapped, in striking detail, the structure of thePhotosystem II protein, a protein that plants use to split water into oxygen and hydrogen. Their

crystal-clear image shows off the proteins catalytic center and reveals the specific orientation of

atoms inside.


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Thanks to this discovery, scientists will now have access to this catalytic structure which could

also hold the key to developing a powerful source of cheap and clean energy.

Worlds FirstMalaria VaccineMalaria Vaccine

Scientists at Oxford University developed the worlds first vaccine against the malaria parasite

which has been shown to be effective against even the most deadliest strains.

The vaccine cut the risk of infection by nearly half an amazing achievement, considering this

is the first vaccine against a human parasite, which infects millions of children each year.

Hints of the Higgs Boson

higgsThe LHC may have found what it was looking for in December when results from twoexperiments showed a small data bump in their results which just might be the elusive God

Particle the Higgs boson.

If further testing corroborates the results, finding the Higgs will likely be seen as one of the 21st

centurys greatest discoveries.

Faster Than Light Particles

FTL NeutrinosResearchers at OPERA announced in September that they had measured neutrinostraveling faster than light. Most physicists dismissed the finding, believing it to be a systemic

error in the measurement or an overlooked error in the analysis, but the teams most recent

findings gathered from a second, more finely-tuned version of the first experiment

revealed that their work still stands.

More rigorous tests will come soon via independent research teams, the results of which, will not

be available until next year at the earliest. While many scientists arent holding their breath, if

confirmed, the FTL neutrinos could very well become the biggest scientific discovery in history.

HIV Treatment For Prevention

HIV vaccineThe journal Science has named the HIV study, known as HPTN 052, as the most

important scientific breakthrough of 2011. The clinical trial of the treatment showed that people

with HIV are 96% less likely to transmit the virus to their partners if they take antiretroviral

drugs (ARVs).


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A massive planet 13 times the size of Jupiter

Kappa Adromedae b is a world so big it defies conventional classification. At 13 times the size

of Jupiter, it circles a proportionally gigantic star 2.5 times larger than our own sun. This

system's existence proves that super-sized stars are capable of producing super-sized planets.

The biggest black hole ever

What's 250 million light-years away from Earth and possesses 17 billion times the mass of our

own sun? This black hole at the heart of the galaxy NGC 1277, which weirdly doesn't gobble up

nearby stars and planets as black holes tend to do.

Selfish, if mysteriously attractive, jerks

Why are high school narcissists disproportionately cool? And why are we obsessed with the

romance of the self-involved Kim Kardashian and Kanye West despite our better judgment? A

small but interesting study reveals that people possessing "dark" qualities like narcissism,

Machiavellianism, and psychopathy were consistently rated as more attractive than so-called

normal peopleat least when they got to choose their own clothes.

A flawless invisibility cloak

Most so-called invisibility cloaks can bend light around an object to disguise it, but tend to

reflect something called incident light, ruining the illusion. Researchers at Duke University

managed to skirt this problem by arranging a new class of metamaterials into a diamond shape,

successfully hiding a miniature cylinder completely.

The (sigh) impossibility of Jurassic Park

Sorry, dinosaur fans. Scientists discovered that DNA breaks down far too rapidly to make it even

conceivable that a genetic engineer could clone a dinosaur. They found that DNA has a half-lifeof 521 years; in other words, after 521 years, half of the bonds between the DNA's nucleotides

will have been shredded. The last dinosaur died 65 million years ago.


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The oldest galaxy ever spotted

The universe is estimated to be somewhere between 13 billion to 14 billion years old. After the

Big Bang, it took hundreds of millions, even billions of years for the void of space to fill itself

with the galaxies and cosmic clusters we can observe today. This newly discovered galaxy a

tiny, fuzzy red orb in photographs is just 200 million years younger than the Big Bang, andmight give us a clearer picture of what the universe was like in its infancy.

An implant that makes monkeys smarter

It's a breakthrough that seems torn straight from a Planet of the Apes script: Researchers have

designed an electrical brain implant that improves the thinking power of monkeys, allowing

debilitated animals to solve complex brain puzzles faster.

Gangster dolphins

Marine biologists studying Australian dolphins discovered that the mammals form complex

hierarchies within their pods in order to attack other groups. Some individuals serve as fighters.

Others serve as liaisons to go out and recruit new members. These "intricate webs" are rare in the

animal kingdom, says Virginia Morell at Wired, and strikingly reminiscent of "the Mafia."


The Bionic Eye

The Argus II takes a video signal from a camera built into sunglasses and wirelessly transmits

that image to implants in the retinas of people who have lost their vision. Though its been

available in Europe since 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) only approved

the eye earlier this year. This really is like Star Trek technology, Roizen says.

The system isn't perfect. It lets a blind person regain basic functions like walking on a sidewalk

without stepping off a curb, and distinguishing black from white socks, but only lets you read

one giant-sized word at a time on a Kindle. Plus, as the retina itself heals over the implant, thequality of vision decreases. The Argus II is currently only approved for people who have lost

their sight from retinal pigmentosiswhich affects 1 in 4,000 Americans. But the technology

could soon help the more than 1.75 million people who suffer from macular degeneration. (The

eyes are the window to themind? Find out what insights your eyes have on the brain.)


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The Cancer Gene Fingerprint

Not all cancers are equally lethalcancer in your prostate means a longer survival rate than a

malignancy in your brain, for example. But even prostate cancer comes in multiple flavors

ranging from manageable to very bad. By analyzing the mutated genome of a tumor, doctors can

now pinpoint whether a cancer is sensitive to a certain chemotherapy, or one that doesnt respondat all to current treatments. Knowing the subtype might mean jumping directly to a clinical trial

that could save your life. (Discover 8 stealth strategies to Cancer-Proof Your Body.)

The Seizure Stopper

For the 840,000 epileptics suffering from sudden, uncontrollable seizures, the NeuroPace is like

a defibrillator for your brain, Roizen says. The system includes sensors implanted in the brain

that can spot the first tremors of an oncoming seizure. Then it sends electrical pulses that

counteract the brain's own haywire signals, stopping the seizure in its tracks. Even more

impressive: The NeuroPace can be fine-tuned by doctors based on its performance. In the first

year it was available, seizure episodes were reduced by an average of 40 percentbut 2 years

later, they dropped by 53 percent. (Know what symptoms warrant a trip to your doctor: Learn the

7 Pains You Shouldnt Ignore.)

The Hepatitis Cure

Until recently, treatment for hepatitis C fell into the good-but-not-great category, with only

around 70 percent of patients being cured. And that was after as much as 48 weeks of a strict

anti-viral drug regimen, including injections of interferonwhich causes a number of

debilitating side effects. But the new drug Sofosbuvir is a much more potent killer of hep C, with

success in as many as 95 percent of patients. Even more, the medication only has to be

administered for 12 weeks, sans interferon injections.

The Anesthesiologist's iPad

Surgeons may get more glory, but anesthesiologists probably play the most vital role in keepingyou alive during surgery. They're the last face you see before you're put into a medicated sleep so

deep you don't even notice that your body is being peeled open. Between keeping track of your

heart rate, breathing, and brain functions, an anesthesiologist also needs to be familiar with the

ins and outs of the procedure so they

Chemistry - Scientific Breakthroughs (2002-2013)

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