The issue of the journal Science, summarizing the passing in 2015, came on Friday night . In order to make a ranking of the most important scientific achievements and discoveries of the year, the editors decided to consult with readers, who by voting chose the top 5 most important, in their view, works. Top-5, however, turned in the top 6 and the editorial “Leader of the Year” was finally in second place.
1 st place – the span of the probe “New Horizons” on Pluto (35% of the vote)
Editorial Science calls 2015 “a great year for a Small Planet.” March 6 space probe Dawn («Dawn”) for the first time in history came into the orbit of the dwarf planet Ceres, and
July 14 probe New Horizons («New Horizons”) flew over Pluto – the most distant from the Earth the planet of the solar system (although the status of the planet’s celestial body lost in 2006) and one of the largest Kuiper belt objects – at a distance of 12 504 km.
«New Horizons” already transmitted to Earth a huge amount of unique data and continue to send new information. So, thanks to the probe, astronomers discovered that Pluto has a icy plains and volcano , which emit into the air frozen mixture of ice, nitrogen, ammonia or methane. In addition, it became clear that the sky over Pluto is the same color as on the Earth, blue , and present in the atmosphere a mixture of organic copolymers – Tolya .
The mission of the “New Horizons” also made it possible to establish the size of Pluto more than previously thought, which means that the he can regain the status of the world .
Despite the fact that the culmination of the flight the probe is over, now!
he goes to another Kuiper Belt object, called 2014 MU69.
If Hope Head of Mission Alan Stern justified and NASA will approve the continuation of the mission, the “New Horizons” reach the goal at the end of December 2019.
2nd place – gene editing technology CRISPR / Cas9 (20% of the vote)
According to the version of Science, first place in the ranking was to take exactly this technology – however, publishers rightly notice she has twice been on the list of the most important scientific achievements in 2012 and 2013.
The method of CRISPR / Cas9 allows you to edit the genome of a living organism, finding and replacing it with the damaged areas. He was born in 2007, when the company – producer of dairy products found that bacteria have a particular genetic defense mechanism against viruses. His further research led to the creation of a technique: its active use began in 2012-2013, but then it was used in combination with other methods of gene changes.
2015 became CRISPR / Cas9 significant because the method has achieved a very high degree of Chinese scientists were able to use it to change the genome of a human embryo ,
and the other Team Researchers got cut from porcine kidney traces harmful to human viruses, making the body safe for humans and hasten the day when transplantation of internal organs from animals to humans become a reality.
About the CRISPR / Cas9 remembered and in September this year – when the company Thomson Reuters named the developed technique the scientists Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Dudnu candidates for the Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Although the technique is still not fully studied, and apply it to the people, according to scientists, it will be possible for at least 50-100 years, CRISPR / Cas9 is already one of the most important ways of learning and changes in the genome of living organisms.
3rd Place – the lymphatic system of the brain (15% of the vote)
June 1 this year the journal Nature published an article , which the authors found: in the human brain lies not previously noticed the lymphatic system.
The lymphatic system – is part of the circulatory system, through which through the body of vertebrates , including human, immune system cells are distributed – lymphocytes. Previously, scientists believed that the brain immune cells appear only when they are needed, that is, during the illness.
However, experiments in mice injected with a contrast agent in filled with cerebrospinal fluid space between the soft and arachnoid meninges brain and spinal cord showed that
substance extends from this space to the lymph nodes. This means that the lymphatic system in the brain is still there – it’s hidden, as it turned out, in the lining of the brain.
Scientists say the discovery will not only allow better understanding of how the interact between a brain and the immune system, but also to open a new path to the treatment of diseases such as meningitis, Alzheimer’s disease or multiple sclerosis.
4th place – a vaccine against Ebola (10% of the vote)
«Unprecedented campaign for the development of drugs and vaccines against Ebola has brought few tangible frustratingly results. However, one potential player who can change the situation, in 2015, still appeared “- so say the editors of Science on the achievement, take an honorable fourth place in the ranking of scientific breakthroughs in 2015.
The vaccine was developed by Canadian scientists and has already demonstrated successful results in clinical trials on monkeys conducted by the World Health Organization in Guinea.
July 31 magazine The Lancet published an article , that said, the vaccine protects against the virus in 75-100% of cases.
Despite the fact that formal approval for vaccines will require new tests and a lot of time, it could still be used to protect people with their informed consent – as an experimental technique. Doctors hope created by Canadian scientists medication will help prevent a repetition of the tragedy that occurred this year in West Africa, through the fault of the Ebola virus.
5th place – proof of the existence of quantum entanglement (6% of the vote)
At the end of October this year, the journal Nature reported that that the physicists were able to prove the existence of the phenomenon called “quantum entanglement.” Quantum entanglement means that
measurement of the properties of a quantum particle, eg the photon influences the other quantum particles, which at the time of measurement on the first particle can be separated not only thousands of kilometers, and light years.
During the 18 days spent about 250 physics experiments, which used two diamond crystal, spaced 1.3 km apart. The crystals were irradiated simultaneously flashes of lasers and microwave energy which causes the electrons inside the diamond to emit photons of light – photons. The photons pass through the fiber optic cable and fell into the recording device.
When they begin to interact with each other, it led to the emergence of the state of quantum entanglement between electrons, which have been sources of photons.
electron wave functions were absolutely the same, and this was proof of the existence of the state of quantum entanglement.
5th place – “Project to verify the reproducibility” (6% of the vote)
Top 5 scientific achievements has become a top-6 because readers Science considered equally important obtain physical evidence of the existence of quantum entanglement and the launch and success of the project Brian Nozeka to verify the results of research on the reproducibility.
When the psychologist Brian Nozek was a student, he became interested in the tests on the subconscious association aimed at identifying biases and prejudices of people. Later Nozeku got the idea that
If you have participants prejudices of his experiments, that is why they can not have, and the scientists themselves?
If this is true, then the bias of researchers can not influence the results of their work, especially when it comes to such a science like psychology.
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:
from 100 proven research only 36% of repeated experiments have shown statistically significant result compared to 97% of 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.
The editors of the journal Science says that in 2015 began unsuccessful for ancient people: the discovery and study of the remains of a previously unknown human ancestor species Homo naledi, which the scientists dubbed the “brainless man” and that could rewrite human evolution, appeared in seventh place. A genome sequencing Kennewick man – an ancient ancestor of Native Americans – and all finished last, the tenth place.
The publishers said, and that, on what they are going to focus in 2016: the list of three items came work Observatory LIGO the experimental detection of gravitational waves of cosmic origin, the work of geneticists on the final clarification of where and when they were domesticated dog, as well as the satellite launch by French researchers, who are going to repeat the experiment of Galileo by throwing various objects from the Leaning Tower, but in a slightly different scale. The satellite will have two years to lose to Earth two cylinders made of different materials – titanium and Platinum. Physicists want to check whether the cylinder will fall with the same acceleration as it happened with Galileo.
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