This year’s biggest scientific achievements

For our solstice event I tried to put together a list of this year’s biggest scientific achievements. They can likely all be looked up with a bit of searching and each one is worthy of a celebration in their own right. But mostly I want to say; we have come a long way this year. And we have a long way to go.

I tried to include science and technology in this list, but really anything world-scale (non-politics or natural disaster) is worthy of celebrating.

  • Rosetta mission lands on a comet

  • using young blood to fight old age (rats)

  • kinghorn human sequencing machines (Sydney relevant)

  • 100,000 genomes project

  • the world’s oldest cave art @ 40,000 years old

  • tesla battery//​released their patents on their electric engines for use by anyone.

  • Virtual reality (cardboard)

  • Astronauts growing their own food

  • Self driving cars

  • cubesats

  • Lab grown kidneys successfully implanted into animals

  • synthetic DNA

  • Chicken with a reptile face

  • nearly an altzeimers cure (ultrasound techniques)

  • DAWN orbits Ceres

  • Deepdreaming machine learning (and twitch-deepdream)

  • Prosthetic limbs that transmit feeling back to the user

  • Autonomous rocket landing pointy end up

  • Lightsail project

  • Ion space travel engine

  • Anti—aging virus injected into the patient 0

  • Super black substance made

  • Q-carbon

  • High temperature superconductor (-70c)

  • 23&me were allowed to open back up

  • Enchroma colourblindness adjusting glasses

  • Google releases “Tensor Flow” which whilst its not very good at the moment has the potential to centralize the Deep Learning libraries.

  • CRISPR’s ability to change the germ line.


from https://​​en.wikipedia.org/​​wiki/​​2015

April 29 – The World Health Organization (WHO) declares that rubella has been eradicated from the Americas.

July 14 - NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft performs a close flyby of Pluto, becoming the first spacecraft in history to visit the distant world.

September 10 – Scientists announce the discovery of Homo naledi, a previously unknown species of early human in South Africa.

September 28 – NASA announces that liquid water has been found on Mars.


Recommendations from the slack:

china makes a genetically modified micropig and sells it: http://​​www.theguardian.com/​​world/​​2015/​​oct/​​03/​​micropig-animal-rights-genetics-china-pets-outrage

psyc studies can’t be reproduced: http://​​www.theverge.com/​​2015/​​8/​​27/​​9216565/​​psychology-studies-reproducability-issues

zoom contact lenses

http://​​mic.com/​​articles/​​118670/​​this-painless-eye-implant-could-give-you-superhuman-vision#.4S5ihAKNE

room temperature synthetic diamonds

http://​​phys.org/​​news/​​2015-11-phase-carbon-diamond-room-temperature.html


Notable deaths

terry pratchett passed away

malcolm fraser

John Forbes Nash Jr

Oliver Sacks

Christopher lee


Nobel medals this year

Chemistry – Paul L. Modrich; Aziz Sancar and Tomas Lindahl (“for mechanistic studies of DNA repair”)

Economics – Angus Deaton (“for his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare”)

Literature – Svetlana Alexievich (“for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time” )

Peace – Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet (“for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011”)

Physics – Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald (“for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass”)

Physiology or Medicine – William C Campbell, Satoshi Ōmura (“for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites”) and Tu Youyou (“for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria”[116])

Other:

The dress

Ebola outbreak

Polio came back

(also this year) - upcoming spaceX return flight on the 19th dec

runner up: vat meat is almost ready.

runner up: soylent got a lot better this year

runner up: quantum computing having progressive developments but nothing specific

Things that happened 100 years ago (from wikipedia):

  • March 19 – Pluto is photographed for the first time

  • September 11 – The Pennsylvania Railroad begins electrified commuter rail service between Paoli and Philadelphia, using overhead AC trolley wires for power. This type of system is later used in long-distance passenger trains between New York City, Washington, D.C., and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

  • November 25 – Einstein’s theory of general relativity is formulated.

  • Alfred Wegener publishes his theory of Pangaea.

Birth:
  • Thomas Huckle Weller, American virologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2008)

  • Charles Townes, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2015)

  • August 27 – Norman F. Ramsey, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2011)

  • Clifford Shull, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2001)

  • November 19 – Earl Wilbur Sutherland Jr., American physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1974)

  • Henry Taube, Canadian-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2005)

Deaths:
  • Paul Ehrlich, German scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1854)

  • December 19 – Alois Alzheimer, German psychiatrist and neuropathologist (b. 1864)

Nobel Prizes:
  • Chemistry – Richard Willstätter

  • Literature – Romain Rolland

  • Medicine – not awarded

  • Peace – not awarded

  • Physics – William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg


Meta—This list was compiled for Sydney’s Solstice event; I figured I would share this because it’s pretty neat.

Time to compose: 3-4hrs

With comments from the IRC and slack

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As usual; any suggestions welcome below.