In the New Year’s issue of the journal Nature told about ten people , in the opinion of the editorial board, became the most colorful figures of the scientific world in the past in 2015.
«Climate guard” – Christian Figueres
Christiana Figueres – diplomat of Costa Rica, to devote most of his political career, the struggle to preserve the Earth’s climate. It tells itself Figueres, push, podvigshim it on environmental activities, was the disappearance of one species of toad of Costa Rican forests. According to the most Christiane, she has seen a toad, but her daughter had already been deprived of this opportunity.
«It’s like I woke up – said Figueres. – Increasing the temperature of the atmosphere was one of the causes of extinction of the toad. I started reading material on the subject, and in that moment I knew that dedicate their lives to the struggle against climate change ».
In 2009, Christiana Figueres has organized the Copenhagen conference devoted to climate change, and on May 17, 2010 has been appointed Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
As the editors Nature, on ended 12 December climate conference in Paris Figueres he used all its political skills to achieve mutual understanding between developed and developing countries – a lot of this was due to the fact that the very Christian was born and raised in a poor country.
«Editor embryos” – Junjie Huang
In April this year, the Chinese geneticist Junjie Huang published
the world’s first paper describing the work of editing the genome of a human embryo using a technique CRISPR – Cas9.
In the experiments, the embryos that were unsuitable for the procedure of artificial insemination. The article caused a lively debate in the scientific world, but the very author of the study refuses to take part in it – the correspondent of Nature failed to get his comment even be a New Year release.
Immediately after the publication of a scientist told Nature: «This work can help identify genetic problems related to cancer or diabetes, and it can be used to study the functions of different genes, which they performed during development of the embryo ».
The geneticist stressed he did not want to provoke the scientists to debate around Starter:
«We wanted to show the world our findings, so that people know how it actually works. Our research – basic work, which shows all the risk, which are changes in the genes ».
Junjie Huang is confident that before the birth of a healthy baby with the edited genome will be held not less than 50 years, and can and 100, and until that time, you just need to continue to work without attracting too much attention to the problem.
«Hunter Pluto” – Alan Stern
An event that occurred July 14, 2015 – the closest approach of the probe “New Horizons” Pluto – Alan Stern, head of the mission was preparing to 1989, when he and several other young researchers had the idea to explore the most distant from the Earth planet of the solar system.
The proposal for the organization of the mission were received in NASA, but in 2000, scientists were refused – Financial reasons. However, Stern knowingly continued to struggle in 2006 the probe all the way to start. In the words of Alan, he was so passionate about the work that by the time his three children out of school and go to university, they have in mind is already firmly imprinted date: July 14, 2015.
The day probe “New Horizons” flew over Pluto at an altitude of 12 504 km, collecting unique data.
According to the researchers, after the culmination of the mission, many members of the team have experienced ” posleproletnuyu depression “- but not Stern. He immediately proceeded to the processing of data that the probe sent and continues to send to Earth. Besides, now “New Horizons” fly toward the Kuiper belt – similar to the asteroid belt region of the solar system, one of the objects of which is Pluto. If NASA approves the extension of the mission, then completed it for the New Year, but already in 2019.
«Master of Materials” – Chzhenan Bao
«If we can create artificial materials such as complexity, both by the nature of the substance, we will be able to solve real problems, “- says Chzhenan Bao.
On her desktop, you can find things like a thin, almost weightless plaster made of carbon nanotubes – he glued on man’s wrist and monitors his heart function, or
created this year, an artificial skin that using nanosensors can react to touches.
Work on it, however, take more than one year and took part in the development of a group of four dozen scientists, who headed Chzhenan Bao. “We are waiting for more long-term work, but we managed to get on the right though,” – says the researcher, who believes that stored in her desk materials ever bring about a revolution in the quality of people to health services.
«Nuclear Diplomat “- Ali Akbar Salehi
July 14, 2015 was for Ali Akbar Salehi least memorable day than Alan Stern. Despite the fact that the achievement of the President of the Atomic Energy of Iran was much more “earthly”, its importance, this does not detract.
The day the “New Horizons” was flying over Pluto, Iran signed an agreement with the countries of the “six” (Russia, US, France, Britain, Germany and China) on the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of trade sanctions against Iran.
Under the agreement, Iran will have to allow IAEA inspectors to its nuclear facilities, and Western countries will gradually withdraw from Iranian economic sanctions.
The editors of the journal Nature the contribution Ali Akbar Salehi to work towards this agreement and hopes that it will become an effective tool to restore and stable partnership relations between Iran and the West.
«Women’s Voice” – Joan Schmelz
In October 2015, the University of California at Berkeley, was a scandal: the world-famous astronomer Geoff Marcy, who predicted Nobel Prize for the discovery of a large number of exoplanets, accused of indecency and sexual harassment of female students. As a result of the scandal Marcy was forced to resign from the university. The initiator of the investigation was the scientist Joan Schmelz.
From 2009 to 2015, Joan Schmelz led the American Astronomical Society, the Committee on Women in Astronomy. Now Schmelz is Director of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Despite the change of place of work, the researcher is not going to rest on our laurels and plans to continue to fight for the rights of women in science.
«Let’s find a way to remove the young women too much pressure to You could easily do science, writing dissertations, without all that extra weight. Let’s change the system “- says Joan Schmelz.
«archaeologist of the genome” – David Reich
«I think that the university I was a kind of idealist. I was attracted to the theory of scale that bring together all “- says David Reich. The youth scientist was interested in many things: by sociology as a special first degree, David completed his studies at the Physics Department. Second higher education scholar was in biochemistry, became interested in population genetics of man.
In 2013, the scientist led his own laboratory, the very first study that has become quite ambitious:
Genetics sequenced the genomes of 66 ancient people – representatives of the pit culture, – the remains of which were found on the territory of Russia. This work has allowed scientists in 2015 to conclude that the people of the pit culture about 5 thousand. Years ago carried out a large-scale migration to Western Europe.
The Department of Science told about another work of David Reich – he was involved in sequencing the genome denisovan, whose remains were found in the Altai scientists Michael Shunkovym and Anatoly Derevyanko.
«The use of ancient DNA as a tool for the study of the past can be compared with the invention of a new tools – for example, a microscope. With it, you can see the many things that have been impossible to detect, “- says Professor Reich.
« superconductor »- Michael Eremets
«As a young researcher in 1970-1980 Mikhail Eremets already shown quite a strong character while working at the Institute of High Pressure Physics in Moscow (Eremets also studied at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute – MEPI. – “Times» ). Working conditions were often disgusting, but Belarusian cope with them, even when he had a hundred times to dial the same phone number, just to get to a working line “- these words begins the journal Nature article about Michael Eremtse.
“If I really want to do something, then I am happy to repeat it many, many times,” – said the scientist, who now works at the Institute of Chemistry of the Max Planck Society (Germany).
This summer, , Mikhail Eremets with colleagues published an article in the journal Nature , which reported:
an ordinary hydrogen sulfide may exhibit properties of a superconductor when it is placed in conditions with a temperature of 203 ° K and a pressure of 1.5 million atmospheres.
The independent group of scientists could not yet fully confirm these findings, but Michael Eremets not going to stop there and continues to study the properties of hydrogen compounds.
«Revolutionary fermentation” – Christina Smoulk
Christine Smoulk engaged in synthetic biology, has managed to create a yeast strain capable of producing opioids – strong painkillers that have been obtainable only from the opium poppy. Scientists have for a long time looking for an alternative way to manufacture opioids, but so far nobody has been able to find an enzyme that facilitates the transition reticulin – the substance is an integral part of morphine and other drugs – from one form to another.
In the main laboratory engaged in what were trying to get reticulin directly from poppy. However, Christine Smoulk went the other way: it
looking into the DNA of poppy areas, which could be responsible for the synthesis of reticulin, and then combine these sites to make them a single gene. He was going with the help of special equipment, letter by letter, and was then “pasted” into the DNA of yeast – and it worked.
However, before the researcher got an ethical problem: Does not the discovery that Drug manufacturers will have a new tool for their production? Yeast was decided to improve: in 2015 there was a strain that is produced exclusively reticulin, without admixture of other substances, thebaine, which is usually used in the manufacture of prohibited substances.
The aim Smoulk is the creation of opioids, which will have exclusive painkiller effect and will not cause addiction or other side effects.
«Fighter prejudice” – Brian Nozek
As a student, Brian began working with Nozek tests subconscious associations, aimed at identifying the unwitting prejudice people. First, such a test may seem very simple: you will be asked to press the left mouse button when you see the man’s name, and on the right – with a female name. However, if you add to the names of the other words – the names of professions, qualities of character, adjectives – your task is more complicated. As practice shows, even
people with the most progressive and liberal views long fluctuate between the two buttons in the form of the word “director” – and still are choosing “male” button.
Nozek suspected that unconscious prejudices and biases have not only subjects, but also psychologists themselves – and it can not affect the results of their work. In 2011, Brian Nozek and his colleagues have launched a project called «Reproducibility Project» – «Project check reproducibility.” His goal – to check the results of psychological research.
In 2015, the journal Science published an article , which said: out of 100 tested research only 36% of repeated experiments have shown statistically significant result compared to 97% of the original works. Nozek did not dwell on the psychology – the second draft to verify the results of research related to the study of cancer, should present the first results in the next year.
However, the ideal scientist Nozek not think anyone, including yourself
«I try to be humble and remember that I myself have a tendency to such behavior, like everyone else,” – says the scientist,
Closes the top ten most influential people in the scientific world in 2015 according to the magazine Nature.
The editorial board and shared plans about what she is going to pay attention in 2016. The list of five people entered Fabiolla Gianotti (nuclear physics, which from 1 January 2016 will take the post of Director General of the European Organization for Nuclear Research), Gabriella Gonzalez (representative of laser-interferometric gravitational-wave observatories LIGO), Kathy Niakan (biologist engaged in research stem cells), Demis Hassabis (scholar of developments in the field of artificial intelligence and neuroscience), and Yang Wei (Head of the National Natural Science Foundation of China).
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