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Science 2005
Top Science Stories of 2005
Evolution on Trial
The decision of Judge John E. Jones III is in on the Dover evolution/I.D.
trial, and the ruling clobbers both the school board and the standing of I.D.
as powerfully as one might hope. Here's an excerpt from the conclusion of the
formal opinion. "the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have
concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its
creationist, and thus religious, antecedents."
Read related article
Tenth Planet Discovered
10th Planet is discovered in the outlying regions of our solar system. The
newly discovered planet is not yet formally named, it is given a temporary name
as 2003 UB 313. It was discovered by Mr. Michael Brown at Palomar Observatory
near San Diego, California. Newly discovered 10th Planet is larger than Pluto
and nearly 9 Billion miles away from sun. Will we call them all planets? Should
Pluto even be considered a planet? In a weird twist to the debate, the
discoverer of the controversial object suggests we all ignore the scientific
debate and let culture decide. One has to wonder if that's the sort of
ambiguity science ought to promote.
Read More
Nanogadgets
In the world of nanotechnology, which is measured in molecules, engineers
crafted some nifty miniature machinery this year. Different teams created the
world's smallest car, motor, robot, refrigerator and fountain pen. One hope is
that these tiny machines, invisible to the human eye, will one day be used to
deliver drugs into cells, perhaps to destroy cancer or cure other ills.
Technology tasks are envisioned too. In one nifty breakthrough, researchers
merged microbe and machine for the first time, creating gold-plated bacteria
that sense humidity.
Read More
on Nanotechnology
Earth Like Planet Discovered
Astronomers expect to eventually find many Earth-sized planets around other
stars. But technology can't spot such small objects yet. Pushing the limits of
existing methods, researchers detected a world just 7.5 times the mass of Earth
orbiting another star and said it must be rocky. This year marked the 10th
anniversary of the discovery of the first extrasolar planet around a normal
star, and astronomers have gathered enough data on about 150 planets since then
to say, in the words of Geoff Marcy, "I imagine most stars have terrestrial
planets. It seems hard not to form them."
Read More
Signs of Life on Mars?
The air of Mars seems to contain pockets of methane in doses that should not
exist. Perhaps it's the belchings of subsurface microbes, European astronomers
said early this year. They support that view with new evidence for blocks of
underground ice in the same region as the methane. The ice could be supplying
the precious liquid water needed to support the biology, they figure. Other
astronomers think the reasoning is very speculative.
Read More
on Astronomy
Global Warming Heats Up as Ice-Cored breaks 650,000 year old
Record
Rise in Greenhouse Gases, Co2 and Methane Highest in last 650,000 years.
Present Concentration of Greenhouse gases, Carbon Dioxide and methane in
atmospheric levels is highest in last 650,000 years, reported by team of
scientists working with European project for Ice coring in Antarctica (EPICA).
Read More
Birth of a Black Hole
An explosion 2.2 billion years ago, whose light just arrived at Earth this
year, was detected and then monitored by an unprecedented array of telescopes
on the ground and in space operated by astronomers furiously exchanging emails.
Within moments, the scientists suspected they had seen the birth of a black
hole as it happened (well, except for that previously mentioned time delay).
The event was triggered by the merger of two neutron stars, the thinking goes.
Detail Story can be found
here
Brain Scans Helps Scientists "Read" Minds
Yukiyasu Kamitani of ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto,
Japan, and Frank Tong of Princeton University showed subjects one of eight
visual stimuli--images with stripes aligned in various orientations. They
determined that the MRI data collected while the volunteers were gazing at the
images showed slight differences depending on what picture they viewed. The
scientists wrote a computer program that recognized the patterns and found that
they could successfully predict what images subjects saw. What is more, when a
volunteer was shown two sets of stripes simultaneously--but told to pay
attention to just one--the team could tell which set the subject was
concentrating on.
Detail Story can be found here
Gamma-Ray Mystery Solved
A 30-year-old puzzle about the origin of short bursts of high-radiation energy
in the cosmos has been solved. Four different teams of astronomers provide a
variety of evidence that, for the first time, establishes the cosmological
distance of the so-called short gamma-ray bursts and points to the source as
either the collision of two small but dense stars, known as neutron stars, or
the collision of a neutron star with a black hole. The finding finally confirms
a theory called the merger model and opens the door not only to more detailed
studies of these unusual events but to the potential for detecting
gravitational waves, the elusive oscillations in spacetime created by gravity.
Detail Story can be found
here
New State of Matter Is 'Nearly Perfect' Liquid
The four detector groups conducting research at the Relativistic Heavy Ion
Collider (RHIC) -- a giant atom "smasher" located at the U.S. Department of
Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory -- say they've created a new state of
hot, dense matter out of the quarks and gluons that are the basic particles of
atomic nuclei, but it is a state quite different and even more remarkable than
had been predicted. In peer-reviewed papers summarizing the first three years
of RHIC findings, the scientists say that instead of behaving like a gas of
free quarks and gluons, as was expected, the matter created in RHIC's heavy ion
collisions appears to be more like a liquid.
Detail Story can be found
here
Breakthroughs of 2005 by The prestigious US journal Science
Evolution in action.
Genome sequencing and painstaking field observations shed light on the
intricacies of how evolution works.
Planetary blitz.
Europe's Huygens probe touched down on Saturn's moon Titan in
January. It was joined by a fleet of other explorers, including Nasa's Deep
Impact, which smashed a hole in a comet.
In bloom
Molecular biologists pinned down several of the molecular
cues responsible for spring's vibrant burst of colour.
Neutron stars
Satellites and ground telescopes shed light on the violent
behaviour of neutron stars; city-sized corpses of stars that pack matter into
an extreme state.
Miswiring the brain
Researchers gained clues about the mechanisms of disorders such as
schizophrenia, dyslexia and Tourette's syndrome.
Complicated Earth
Comparisons of rocks from Earth and outer space forced scientists to scrap
long-held views of how our planet formed.
Protein portrait
Scientists got their best look yet at the molecular structure
of a voltage-gated potassium channel.
Change of climate
More evidence implicating human activities in global warming was presented, the
magazine said.
Systems biology
Molecular biologists are looking to engineering in order to understand the
behaviour of complex systems.
Bienvenue Iter
After 18 months of wrangling, the $12bn International Thermonuclear
Experimental Reactor (Iter) got a home: Cadarache in France.
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