The Nobel Prize-winning LIGO detector and 70 other telescopes worked together for the first time to record how two neutron stars fused together. According to Science, this is the most significant scientific breakthrough of 2017.
The top 10 also includes a previously unknown cousin, new treatments for serious illnesses, a new way to repair genes, and information about a much more ancient origin of our species.
1. Collisions of neutron stars
The LIGO detector once again showed that a completely new era had begun in astronomy. On August 17 this year, he recorded the strongest signal ever, coming from two neutron stars that fused together in a galaxy 130 million light-years away.
The LIGO detector continued to be # 1 on the list of greatest scientific breakthroughs last year, and this year the Nobel Prize in physics went to Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne for their work with it.
American physicist and astronomer Kip Thorne.
But the August 17 event deserves another first place. LIGO previously recorded gravitational waves from four black hole collisions. This time, for the first time, astronomers saw the collision of two luminous stars, which can also be recorded by an ordinary telescope, and immediately sent a message to their colleagues around the world: something interesting is happening in the starry sky.
Promotional video:
LIGO and the European Virgo gravitational wave detector, as well as about 70 different telescopes, followed the death dance of two neutron stars and cascades of light, gold, platinum and other heavy elements, which, when they collided, were thrown into space.
Neutron stars are very dense, they are like giant atomic nuclei 10 kilometers in diameter and can weigh one and a half times more than the Sun. Now, for the first time, astronomers have had the opportunity to test their theories about how heavy elements are formed during their collisions.
The gravitational waves measured by LIGO and Virgo are just small ripples in space made up of truly heavy celestial bodies. The ability to measure them gives access to completely new knowledge, as if we were connecting sound to a silent film about a symphony orchestra. On August 17th, for the first time, this sound from LIGO and Virgo was combined with a picture obtained at other observatories, and we were able to hear the first piece of the entire concert of the universe.
2. New great ape in the family
This year we have a new cousin - a previously unknown orangutan living in northern Sumatra. Up to this point, six species have been classified as great apes: chimpanzees, pygmy chimpanzees, two species of gorillas, as well as the Kalimantan orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) in Borneo and the Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii) in Sumatra. The new species, called the Tapanul orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis), lives on the other side of Lake Toba, just a hundred kilometers from the Sumatran orangutan, and differs from it genetically and in behavior. It appears to be the oldest of the three. Only 800 representatives of this species remain in nature, and their existence is threatened by the planned construction of a dam.
An orangutan named Pacquiao with the owner of the Malabon Zoo in Manila, Philippines.
3. Filmed life at the atomic level
The fact that the breakthrough, rewarded this year by the Nobel Committee, entered the top ten Science, is quite unusual. This usually takes the committee much longer. But this year in the top ten - not only the event marked by the Nobel Prize in physics, but also the cryoelectron microscope, the basis for the creation of which was laid by the laureates of the prize in chemistry. Thanks to this technology, scientists can investigate cellular molecules down to the atomic level, indistinguishable by any other microscope, and even create films from these individual moments to show how the molecules move and interact with each other.
4. Biologists share articles
Physicists are followed by biologists who have found a way to share unpublished scientific articles with each other. Subscriptions to scientific publications are expensive, and it takes a long time before the results of work get there. For works in physics, mathematics and astronomy, the arXiv database has existed since 1991. There, everyone can quickly access the results of the work and express constructive criticism before the author sends an article for formal review to a scientific publication. This year, a project for a similar base for biologists called bioRxiv gained momentum.
5. Fix the gene
There are up to 60 thousand known genetic abnormalities associated with human diseases. Almost 35,000 of them are explained by a single mistake in a single compound block of the genetic code A, C, G and T. Crispr genetic scissors, which took first place in Science 2015 rankings, can cut off and isolate a gene, but are much less suitable for to replace one "letter" of the genetic code. Scientists at Harvard University have created a new tool that allows you to chemically convert erroneous C into T, and then erroneous G into A. A group of scientists from the Broad Institute managed to do the same with the "cousin" of the DNA molecule - RNA.
6. Treatment that doesn't depend on where the cancer lurks
The cancer drug pembrolizumab (marketed under the name Keytruda) was approved in the US in May. It would seem not so remarkable. The drug has already been approved for the treatment of malignant melanoma, for example. But now it can be used for all forms of cancer, if the mechanisms that correct the errors that occur when copying our DNA are malfunctioning in patients. 86 critically ill patients with 12 different types of cancer received pembrolizumab treatment, and in more than half of them, their tumors shrank. These findings may lead to the creation of a new cancer control strategy.
7. Earth's atmosphere 2.7 million years ago
There are bubbles in the ice of Antarctica, in which the air of the past has been preserved. Scientists have been able to drill 2.7 million years of ice, 1.7 million years older than the previous record. Ice refers to the period when the fluctuations between ice ages and warming were just beginning, and early analyzes show that the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was then much lower than today. Scientists now want to drill through ice five million years old, dating back to a time when the amount of greenhouse gases was about the same as today.
Emperor penguin on a drifting ice floe in Antarctica.
8. Homo sapiens is older than we thought
This year, ideas about the place and time of the appearance of our species have changed. Until now, the oldest fossils believed to belong to Homo sapiens were from Ethiopia 200 thousand years old, but our ancestors seem to have existed already 300 thousand years ago in the territory of present-day Morocco. This is evidenced by the skulls and tools found in the Jebel Irhud cave, a hundred kilometers west of Marrakech. Miners found a skull there in 1961, but until anthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin conducted new excavations, it was believed that the skull was younger and belonged to an African Neanderthal.
9. Breakthrough in gene therapy
Spinal cord atrophy is a devastating disease. Children with the most severe form of the first type most often die before they reach the age of two. Muscle function gradually diminishes, and eventually children lose the ability to breathe on their own. But now there is hope. Of the 12 children who received high doses of gene therapy, all but one were able to eat, sit and talk. Two began to walk.
And this was not the only breakthrough in gene therapy in a year. For example, one boy received new skin and two blood cancer treatments were approved that optimize patients' own immune cells.
10. Small neutrino detector
A neutrino is a small, uncharged particle that weighs less than a millionth of an electron and can freely pass through the entire Earth. Therefore, it is very difficult to study it. Until now, huge detectors were required like the Super-Kamiokande, a giant steel tank containing 50,000 tons of ultrapure water in a mine in Japan, or the IceCube, which uses cubic kilometers to probe these particles. Antarctic ice. This year, scientists were able to see neutrinos using a completely new type of detector, which is quite mobile and weighs just over 14 kilograms.
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is located in the vicinity of the South Pole in Antarctica. Archival photo.
Scientific fiasco of the year
Even before Donald Trump took over as President of the United States, many scientists expressed great concern about his relationship to science. And this was no exaggeration. In his first year in office, Trump decided, among other things, that the United States should withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, made people hostile to science as leaders of, for example, the department of the environment, and cut the funds allocated for science. Moreover, he has not appointed himself any scientific advisor. But all of this also led scientists around the world to the March in Defense of Science, which had never happened before.
Other fiascoes include the abandonment of attempts to save the California porpoise from extinction and information about sexual harassment in the scientific community.
Maria Gunther, Amina Manzoor