The coming year will bring new resonant discoveries in the fields of genetics, space exploration and archeology. The world's attention is focused on China, which is successfully continuing the lunar program and conducting daring experiments to create genetically modified children. What scientists and projects should be followed in 2019.
Gemini edited
The global scientific community will tighten ethical standards to prevent uncontrolled editing of human genomes. This decision has matured after the shocking announcement of the Chinese scientist He Jiankui about the birth of two girls, whose DNA has been changed to save them from the risk of HIV infection.
Scientists will also check to see if tampering with children's DNA has caused unwanted side effects.
According to He Jiankui, the genome was edited at the earliest stage of embryo formation using the CRISPR-cas9 method. It was originally discovered in bacteria and modified for use in multicellular organisms. The method allows you to turn on, turn off, cut or insert a gene into the DNA of any animal, including humans.
CRISPR-cas9 gave hope to save humanity from serious hereditary diseases.
Promotional video:
Return to the Moon
At the very beginning of January, for the first time in history, the Chinese rover "Chang'e-4" will land on the far side of the moon. He is exploring the surface in the area of Karman crater, located in the South Pole - Aitken basin, and will conduct astrophysical and biological experiments.
In the same year, China will send the long-planned Chang'e-5 mission to the moon with a lunar rover and a drilling rig. The task set by the engineers is to select the lunar regolith column and deliver it to Earth.
Now only China has a full-fledged lunar program, which has resulted in five spacecraft operating on the surface and in satellite orbit.
The first private robot, Beresheet, is scheduled to be delivered to the moon early next year. It was developed in Israel for the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition. The lander as part of the SpaceIL apparatus will go on a Falcon-9 rocket.
Triumph of Mendeleev
2019 was declared the International Year of the Periodic Table by UNESCO. She turns 150 years old.
Russian scientist Dmitry Mendeleev systematized chemical elements by their atomic masses and presented the first versions of the table in 1869. This made it possible to predict new elements and their properties. The achievement is recognized by the scientific community as one of the greatest in the history of mankind.
In honor of the anniversary, many scientific and educational events are planned around the world. In September, St. Petersburg will host one of the key events - the XXI Mendeleev Congress on General and Applied Chemistry.
Map of the universe
The Russian scientific observatory "Spektr-RG", developed jointly with German specialists, will be launched into orbit in April 2019. This is a unique research complex designed to study space objects in the X-ray and gamma ranges.
Spectr-RG will go to the vicinity of the L2 Lagrange point, located behind the Moon's orbit at a distance of one and a half million kilometers from us. With its help, scientists intend to create a detailed map of the Universe, to answer questions about the evolution of galaxies.
Keys to science, where the money lies
The Open Access movement, proclaiming free access to scientific information, will enter the home stretch. Institutes and foundations are massively preparing to put an end to the paid model of distribution of scientific periodicals. For this purpose, they have developed a pan-European initiative called Plan S.
The seriousness of intentions is evidenced by the fact that the other day the Max Planck scientific society in Germany broke off the contract with the publishing house of the scientific periodicals Elsevier. Previously, Swedish institutes and universities lost their subscriptions, only about three hundred organizations.
In turn, large publishers pursue resources with open access to information. In November 2018, at the suit of Elsevier, a court in Russia decided to block Sci-Hub, the world's most popular source of "pirated" scientific publications, created by Alexandra Elbakyan. Earlier, a similar decision was made by a US court on the suit of Springer.
On the way to new physics it became crowded
In March 2019, the Japanese government will give an answer whether it will support the construction of the 50-kilometer electron-positron International Linear Collider (ILC) in the country. The project's budget is about $ 7 billion.
In May 2019, CERN will unveil the concept (physical basis) of the Future Cyclic Collider (FCC), which will operate after the LHC. Physicists propose to build a one hundred kilometers tunnel in Switzerland and France and place there three accelerators for colliding colliding beams: electron-positron, proton and electron-ion.
Both installations are intended for a detailed study of the Higgs boson and the search for new physics. Their direct competitor is the Ring Electron-Positron Collider in China. His project was published this year.
Unsinkable
In September, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will publish the final version of a special report on the oceans and cryosphere - the frozen shell of the Earth. What threatens them if the heating of the atmosphere continues? The answer will be contained in the document.
The report is being prepared by order of the parties to the Paris Agreement. Whether Russia will ratify it will also become clear in 2019.
Europeans got confused
Next year, new discoveries are expected by paleogeneticists studying the origin of the prehistoric peoples of Eurasia. At stake is the concept of the ancestral home of the Slavs and modern peoples inhabiting Europe.
Three years ago, scientists, having processed a large archaeological material collected over a vast territory from the Mongolian steppes to Western Europe, proved that modern European peoples descended from distant ancestors who lived in the Black Sea and Caspian steppes five thousand years ago. This is evidenced by the analysis of DNA isolated from the remains in ancient burials.
Recently, gradually processing archaeological data, geneticists have made a number of discoveries. They found out that the steppe peoples inhabited Europe in several stages for about a thousand years, the Scythians did not belong to the Indo-European peoples, and the plague came to Europe in the Stone Age.
In search of the unknown
It is possible that already in the coming year, astronomers will find the mysterious planet "X" on the outskirts of the solar system. Two years ago, planetary scientists Michael Brown and Konstantin Batygin calculated its position in the sky with great accuracy and are now trying to find it with the Subaru telescope in Hawaii.
The hypothetical planet should be several times larger than the Earth. If found, it will become the ninth in the solar system and the fifth among the giant planets.
Tatiana Pichugina