Original
source : http://listverse.com
Posted :
January 2015
Author :
Rady Alexander
It was an
exciting year for science in 2014, providing us with plenty of amazing moments
and one or two regrettable ones. As a new year dawns, let’s look back at some
of the science stories that dominated headlines over the last 12 months.
10 Teenagers
Make Agricultural Breakthrough
The Google
Science Fair is a yearly online competition open to teenagers aged 13–18 that
has taken place since 2011. Like the name suggests, it is sponsored by Google,
as well as organizations like Virgin Intergalactic, National Geographic, and
Lego. In 2014, the grand prize was awarded to three 16-year-old girls from
Ireland for their project: “Natural Bacteria Combating World Hunger.” In brief,
the three students showed that certain crops can grow faster if they are
treated with certain diazotroph bacteria. There was already a symbiotic link
established between the bacteria in question and legumes, with the bacteria and
plants thriving together. The students decided to see what the effect would be
on non-legume plants, especially during the germination stage. For their
experiment the students used the Rhizobium bacterium, which is quite common in
soil, and common cereal crops like barley and oats. The results were
significant. During germination, seeds treated with the bacteria sprouted 50
percent faster than untreated ones. This caused the harvest yield to improve by
as much as 70 percent. The teenagers suggested that the process could be a
relatively effective and inexpensive way to increase crop yields. They plan to
continue their project with support from the European Commission.
9 Lockheed
Martin Announces Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough
Of course,
just because a story makes big headlines doesn’t mean the science behind it is
guaranteed to be revolutionary. In fact, ever since technology developer
Lockheed Martin boasted of a huge breakthrough in the field of nuclear fusion
earlier this year, experts have been expressing severe doubts about the claims.
Even so, the announcement generated a lot of publicity and certainly made the
headlines. In October,
Lockheed Martin announced that the company had taken a step closer to
developing fusion-powered reactors small enough to fit inside the back of a
truck. Astonishingly, the company claimed that such a reactor could be ready
for use in as little as 10 years. The proposed reactor is the result of four
years of work by Lockheed’s most secretive branch, Skunk Works, which
specializes in fusion energy. According to Lockheed Martin, the first prototype
100-megawatt reactor will be ready in just five years. Sadly, many
scientists now view Lockheed’s claims as akin more to a publicity stunt than an
actual breakthrough. It’s not necessarily that they are unfeasible, but the
press release issued by Lockheed is all flash and no substance, talking grandly
of peace and a new atomic age without any real science to back it up. Fusion
energy experts note that key pieces of information, such as the temperature and
confinement time theoretically possible in the reactor, are missing. Until
Lockheed releases additional data, it’s probably a good idea to take the
headlines with a grain of salt.
8 Saturn’s
New Moon
According to
NASA, it would appear that Saturn is the proud owner of a new baby moon,
adorably named “Peggy.” New images taken by the Cassini spacecraft show a
disturbance in the outer edge of Saturn’s iconic ring system - the result of the
gravitational effect of an object within the ring itself. Despite the
fact that the object in question forms a gravitational arc 1,200 kilometers
(750 mi) long and 10 kilometers (6 mi) wide, scientists don’t expect the moon
to be bigger than 1 kilometers (0.6 mi) in diameter. We will have to wait until
the end of 2016, when the Cassini probe will move closer to the outer edge of
Saturn’s ring, in order to take a closer look at Peggy. Excitingly,
we are likely watching the birth of a new moon. Peggy is most likely at the stage
where it has accrued enough icy mass to pull away from the ring system and
begin orbiting Saturn. It is the first time we will have the opportunity to see
a moon during the formation process and will likely help us further understand
how Saturn’s other moons have formed.
7 Giant
Dinosaur Discovered
When it
comes to dinosaurs, size definitely does matter. It’s a key part of the
fascination we have with them - dinosaurs reached such amazing sizes that no
other land animal has even come close to matching them. And 2014 was the year
we might just have discovered the biggest of them all. It can be
pretty tough to accurately determine the weight and size of a creature that
lived millions of years ago from just a few bones. And that is a major problem
for many species - only a few bones are found and not necessarily the ones needed
for accurate measurements. Which is part of what makes last year’s discovery in
Argentina so astounding - almost half the skeleton was recovered, including
two-thirds of the skull. Named Dreadnoughtus due to its humongous size, the
dinosaur forms part of the Titanosaur group, reserved only for the true giants. For a while,
Dreadnoughtus was thought certain to be the largest dinosaur in existence. It
weighed around 65 tons, was 12 meters (40 ft) tall, and was 26 meters (85 ft)
long. But Dreadnoughtus does have a challenger - Argentinosaurus has long been
considered the biggest of the dinosaurs and many estimates still place him at
the top. However, Argentinosaurus is only known from a few bones, so it’s
impossible to say for sure which one was the true king of the giants. But there
might be one more piece of evidence that could prove crucial - bone evidence
suggests that the recovered Dreadnoughtus fossil was still growing at the time
of death.
6 An
Earth-Like Planet In A Habitable Zone
Discovering
life on another planet is the Holy Grail of cosmology. Since we only know for
sure of life on our own planet, astronomers are on the lookout for exoplanets
that resemble Earth as much as possible, hoping that similar conditions mean a
similar potential for life (as we know it). To be considered Earth-like, an
exoplanet must meet a few basic criteria: It should be roughly the same size
Earth and should be located in the habitable zone of its system - the area where
temperatures allow for liquid water to exist. However,
planets are smaller and dimmer than stars, making them much harder to spot. The
majority of discovered exoplanets are found using transit photometry - when a
planet passes in front of a star, the star’s brightness decreases by a small
amount. Another successful method is radial velocity - orbiting planets actually
have a minute gravitational effect on the stars themselves, causing them to
travel in a small orbit. The trouble is that both of these methods work best
with giants like Jupiter, not Earth-like exoplanets. But last year we finally
discovered the first genuine Earth-like planet in the habitable zone. The planet
is called Kepler-186f and it orbits Kepler-186, a red dwarf 500 light-years
from Earth. The exoplanet is only 10 percent larger than Earth and orbits its
star every 130 days. Four other planets orbit the same star at a much closer
distance, making them too hot for recognizable life to develop. The discovery
proved that planets similar to Earth are not only possible, but likely a common
occurrence throughout the Universe.
5 New Stem
Cell Class Discovered
There are
few scientific topics that generate more controversy than stem cell research.
This is usually the result of using embryonic stem cells. Many question the
ethical implications involved, but we should also remember that new and
improved methods for harvesting and even creating stem cells are constantly
being researched. Furthermore, here are just a few of the medical conditions that
stem cells could be useful in treating: cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s,
diabetes, ALS, brain tumors, infertility, heart disease, lung damage, multiple
sclerosis, and the list goes on. Of course,
all of that controversy would likely go away if we could just stop using
embryonic stem cells - which is why it briefly appeared as if 2014 would be the
year that changed everything. It looked like a major breakthrough had taken
place when a new process called “stimulus-triggered acquisition of
pluripotency” (STAP) was announced. It was supposed to be a revolutionary new
way of creating stem cells by bathing blood cells in a low pH acid bath for 30
minutes. Unfortunately, it later turned out that the results were fraudulent. But just
when it looked like 2014 would be a black eye for stem cell research, a group
of scientists from Canada discovered a new class of stem cells, dubbed F-class
for their fuzzy appearance. The discovery is very recent and its full
ramifications are not yet clear, but it is expected that the new type of stem
cells will prove safer and more efficient for medical use.
4 Plate
Tectonics On Europa
Jupiter’s
moon Europa has long been considered a prime candidate for the existence of
extraterrestrial life, mostly due to the presence of liquid water under the
moon’s icy shell. But this year another significant element was
discovered - tectonic plates. New evidence suggests that Europa has a system of
plate tectonics similar to our own planet, making it the only other celestial
body confirmed to feature this kind of geological activity. The
distinctive cracks and ridges that cover Europa make it relatively easy to
observe the moon’s surface and the potential existence of plate tectonics there
has been debated among astronomers and geologists for quite a while now. Images
of Europa taken using the Galileo orbiter in the early 2000s appeared to show
the moon’s ice crust expanding. While nobody thought that the moon was growing,
we weren’t really sure where the terrain was going. However, last year new
evidence suggested that Europa’s surface plates moved below one another and
into the moon’s 30-kilometer (20 mi) thick ice shell. The existence of such a
geological mechanism would allow material from the surface to move into
Europa’s interior oceans and vice versa, further increasing the moon’s
potential as a habitable world.
3 A Million
Mummies Discovered
Just a few
weeks ago, it looked like we would be closing 2014 with one of the biggest
archaeological finds of all time after news broke of a cemetery uncovered in
Egypt containing approximately one million mummies. The mummies themselves were
supposed to be anywhere between 1,500 and 2,000 years old, dating back to when
the Roman and Byzantine Empires controlled Egypt. The discovery had been made
by archaeologists from Utah’s Brigham Young University and the cemetery was
later dubbed Fag el-Gamous (“Way of the Water Buffalo”) after a nearby road. But while
the announcement generated excited headlines around the world, many experts
treated the claims skeptically. For starters, it wasn’t clear where such a
large number of bodies could have come from - there is only one known large
historical settlement in the area, and it has its own burial grounds. And it
didn’t take long for the highly publicized claim to be rebuffed.
Representatives from the Egyptian Antiquities Ministry were quick to decrease
the number of “mummies” from millions to a few thousand. They also pointed out
that the bodies weren’t real mummies by any meaningful definition of the
word - they were just old remains buried in a cemetery. It’s still
not clear if the outrageous “million mummies” story was a giant error or a
deliberate attempt to garner extra publicity, but in the meantime the
archaeologists involved have all had their dig licenses revoked by the Egyptian
government. Just another reason why you shouldn’t automatically trust the latest
viral headline.
2 The First
Species To Have Sex
It would
appear that a team led by Australian paleontologist John Long has uncovered the
origin of sex as a means of reproduction - and it’s in Scotland. They point to a
newly discovered species of ancient fish called Microbachius dicki, which had
apparently mastered sexual reproduction over 380 million years ago. But early
sex was apparently a little different from our streamlined modern model - 3-D
printed models of the fish suggest that the only viable position in which sex
would have been possible was sideways. The male had two L-shaped claspers that
were inserted into the female’s genital plates and locked in place for the
duration of copulation. To help the male stay in position, the female’s genital
plates were apparently rough “like Velcro.” If our
understanding of animal evolution is correct, it would appear that fish didn’t
really take to sex and soon reverted back to spawning as a means of
procreation. According to current fossil records, it would be a few million
years before sex would make a comeback.
1 Our First
Landing On A Comet
In March
2004, the Rosetta spacecraft was launched by the European Space Agency, with
its main mission being to study comets. During the next 10 years, Rosetta did a
flyby of Mars, traveled through the asteroid belt, and performed several other
flybys around asteroids. Then, on November 12, the spacecraft’s Philae lander
made history by performing the first ever landing on a comet. The comet in
question, designated 67P but also known as Churyumov-Gerasimenko, was
discovered 45 years ago and is roughly 4 kilometers (2.5 mi) in width and
length. It orbits the Sun every 6.5 years and will reach the next perihelion
(closest point to the Sun - 1.2 astronomical units in this case) in August 2015.
The Rosetta spacecraft will remain in orbit around the comet all through 2015
in the hope of providing us with information about the formation of Earth. Comets are
considered to contain important ingredients for creating habitable planets,
such as water and organic compounds. In fact, one of the hypotheses that Philae
will look to solve is whether our planet’s water was actually delivered to us
by comets. It will take a while for the lander to provide us with accurate
information, but already Philae has been able to detect organic molecules in
the atmosphere of the comet.
~Blog Admin~
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