Researchers have discovered that an ancient protein, called GK-PID, was responsible for the development of single-celled organisms into multicellular organisms about 800 million years ago. This molecule became a kind of trigger, which began the process of attracting chromosomes and uniting inside the inner layer of the cell membrane during division. It actually allowed cells to divide properly, avoiding malignancy.

Amazing discovery also showed that more ancient version GK-PID behaved completely differently from how it is currently behaving more modern version. The only reason to explain this is that the ancient GK gene doubled in size at some point. One copy continued to contribute to the preparation of raw materials for DNA, and the second one became GK-PID. In other words, the emergence of multicellular life is due to the result of a single mutation.

Finding a New Prime Number

In January of this year, the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search program discovered a new prime number, 2^74,207,281 – 1.

You're probably wondering: what's the significance of this discovery? The fact is that modern cryptography for encrypting data requires the use of very complex numbers, as well as prime numbers Mersenne (only 49 such numbers have been discovered so far). The new number discovered is the longest ever found and contains almost 5 million more digits than the nearest previous number. The total number of digits in this number is slightly less than 24,000,000, so a more practical spelling of it looks like this: 2^74,207,281 – 1.

Discovered in the Solar System

Even before the discovery of Pluto in the 20th century, there were theories about the existence of a ninth planet, Planet X, which lies beyond Neptune. Its presence was indicated by the peculiarity of the behavior of gravitational waves, which could be caused by the presence of very massive object. Later, the discovered Pluto was mistaken for this planet, but the features of gravitational distortions were not fully explained until the California Institute of Technology provided evidence that the ninth planet actually exists and has an orbital period of 15,000 years.

The astronomers who wrote about their discovery say that the probability that some very dense cloud of asteroids or meteorites was mistaken for Planet Nine is only 0.0007 percent.

At the moment, Planet Nine is still just a hypothetical assumption, since no one has yet seen it with their own eyes. However, astronomers have calculated that the reason for this is simply its colossal orbit. If this planet does exist, it would likely be about 2 to 15 times more massive than Earth, and its orbit would be somewhere between 200 and 1600 astronomical units from the Sun. One astronomical unit is equal to 150,000,000 kilometers. In other words, Planet Nine could be up to 240,000,000,000 kilometers from the Sun.

A method has been created for almost eternal data storage

Over time, absolutely everything becomes unusable, so we, for example, do not have the opportunity to store digital data on the same medium indefinitely. However, this could soon change thanks to the opening of the University of Southampton. Scientists using nanostructured glass have successfully developed a new process for writing and reading data. The storage device itself looks like a small glass disk, slightly larger than a quarter, but can store up to 360 TB of data and withstand temperatures of up to 1,000 degrees Celsius. This means that at average room temperature, data on such a medium will be stored for about 13.8 billion years (that is, approximately the same as the age of the Universe itself).

Data is written to the media using ultra-high-speed short and laser pulses. Each data file is recorded in three layers of nanostructured dots spaced just 5 micrometers apart. When reading, information is realized (read) in five directions: according to the three-dimensional location of nanostructured points, as well as their size and direction.

A family relationship has been discovered between blind-eyes and four-toed vertebrates

Over the past 170 years, science has concluded that vertebrate life on the planet evolved from fish that lived in the waters ancient earth. Scientists were forced to come to this conclusion by the observations of researchers from the New Jersey Institute of Technology (USA), who discovered the Taiwanese blind eye (this is a fish, if anyone doesn’t know), which can crawl along walls and has almost the same anatomical abilities as amphibians or reptiles.

For science, from the point of view of the evolution of adaptive characteristics of species, this discovery is very significant. It can help scientists better understand how the process of development of prehistoric fish into terrestrial tetrapods took place. It should be noted that the difference between blind-eyes and other fish capable of moving on a hard surface lies in their gait, which boils down to the active use of the “hip parts” when crawling.

SpaceX successfully performed vertical landing of a space rocket

Previously, we could only see vertical landing of a rocket on planets and satellites in cartoons and science fiction films, but in reality such a landing is an incredibly difficult task. This is why space agencies build rockets so that the spent parts either fall into the ocean or simply burn up in the atmosphere. The ability to land the rocket vertically means that the launches themselves can be done much cheaper if desired, and the spent stages can be used for future projects. This can really save you a lot of money.

The private American company SpaceX made the first successful vertical landing of a rocket on April 8 this year, after which they did the same, but with the participation of a floating barge as a landing site. This success of the company in the long term can not only save a lot of money for the next launches, but also significantly reduce the time between these launches.
To be fair, it should be noted that not only SpaceX managed to do this. The success of experimental launches was also noted at Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos (the owner of Amazon). True, in this case it was not a question of a full launch and entry into orbit, like SpaceX, but rather of lifting the rocket to an altitude of 100 kilometers and soft landing back to Earth.

Be that as it may, such projects force space agencies to move forward in issues space research.

A cybernetic implant that gave a paralyzed man back the ability to move his fingers

After installing a special compact implant in the brain, a man who spent the last 6 years of his life completely paralyzed regained the ability to move his fingers.

This cybernetic chip was created by scientists from Ohio State University (USA) and sends signals to a nearby receiver, which processes them and transmits them to a special electronic glove on a person’s hand. The glove contains electrical wires that stimulate certain muscles and cause the fingers to move. The effectiveness of the device is such that with its help a person was even able to play the music game Guitar Hero, thereby surprising not only scientists, but also the doctors who participated in this experiment.

Stem cells can get people with stroke back on their feet

Stanford University School of Medicine has conducted a trial using human stem cell injections directly into the brains of stroke patients. The procedure was successful and showed a complete absence of any negative side effects, except for a slight headache, which soon stopped after the experiment. All 18 participating volunteers who had suffered a stroke and completed post-stroke rehabilitation 6 months ago experienced significant improvements in health after this experiment. Stem cell injections have increased patients' mobility so much that those people who had been confined to wheelchairs all this time were able to walk again.

Carbon dioxide can be used to make rocks

Reducing carbon emissions is an important part of maintaining a CO2 balance on the planet. When any combustible materials are burned, all the CO2 accumulated in this material is released into the atmosphere. People have been trying to solve this problem for generations, but so far they are losing. The result is climate change on the planet.

Scientists from Iceland recently found perhaps the most effective method permanently block carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. Researchers pumped a certain amount of CO2 into volcanic Icelandic rock, and it accelerated the process that turns basalt into carbonate minerals, which later become limestone. This process usually takes hundreds or thousands of years, but scientists from Iceland were able to complete the process in just two years. As a result, carbon dioxide is sealed in the stone and can be stored underground or even used as a building material without being released into the atmosphere.

Earth has 'another moon'

Scientists from the NASA aerospace agency have discovered an asteroid captured by the gravity of our planet and now in Earth's orbit. In fact, this makes it the second natural satellite of our planet. Of course, a lot of things fly and have flown around our planet: space stations, artificial satellites and just thousands of tons of various space debris. But we always had only one Moon. And now there are two of them, since NASA has confirmed the existence and orbit of the object 2016 HO3.

The object itself revolves around our planet at a very large distance and is more likely to be subject to the gravitational influence of the Sun rather than the Earth, but it revolves not only around our star, but also around our planet. However, do not rush to pack your bags so that you can soon take a walk around our new natural satellite, since its dimensions are only 40 to 100 meters in diameter.

Despite the fact that 2016 HO3 has a very stable orbit around the Earth and the Sun, in a few centuries, according to Paul Chodas of NASA's Near-Earth Object Center, the object will leave orbit and possibly fly out of the solar system altogether. Chodas also adds that 2016 HO3 has been a very stable quasi-satellite of Earth for more than a century.

Illustration: NASA/Ames Research Center/C. Henze.

Gas detector in the atmosphere of Mars, magnetic nanosand, Russian names of new chemical elements - Russian science showed good results in 2016 against the backdrop of less optimistic news in other areas.

New names in the periodic table

One of the loudest mentions of Russian scientists in 2016, of course, was associated with the expansion of the periodic table. Elements with serial numbers 115 and 118 were synthesized earlier: the first synthesis of 115 took place at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna back in 2003, and 118 was obtained a year earlier. But it was in 2016 that the final recognition of Russia’s priority in these discoveries took place, and on November 26, the cells in the table were occupied by the symbols Mc and Og - in honor of the elements moscovium and oganesson.

First Russian orbit of Mars

In September, a complex of two vehicles flew to the fourth planet of the solar system: the Trace Gas Orbiter and the Schiaparelli landing technology demonstration module. TGO's mission is to study the atmosphere of Mars in search of traces of "biological" gases such as methane, while simultaneously acting as a "cell tower" for vehicles operating on the planet's surface. It is on this probe that there are two completely Russian instruments created at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The first one is FREND (Fine Resolution Epithermal Neutron Detector) - this is a high-thermal neutron detector high resolution. It measures neutron fluxes emanating from the surface of Mars and builds maps of water content in the near-surface soil layer. The second is ACS (Atmospheric Chemistry Suite). This is not even one, but three spectrometers operating in different ranges, which represent a universal chemical gas analyzer that will study the molecules of the Martian atmosphere.

Surprisingly, this time it was not the Russian part of the mission that failed: the European Schiaparelli module crashed during landing. It is interesting how they will now resolve the issue of delivering the second part of the mission to the surface of Mars, the launch of which is scheduled for 2020. The landing platform for the European Mars rover Pasteur is being made in Russia.

The mouse went

Spinal injury is one of the most pressing problems in modern neuroscience. So far no one has been able to fully cope with the broken spinal cord. However, it was in 2016 that several experimental works were published that show that not everything is so bad. In one of them, scientists from St. Petersburg played an important role.

Scientists from the laboratory of neuroprostheses of the Institute of Translational Biomedicine of St. Petersburg state university under the guidance of Professor, Doctor of Medical Sciences Pavel Musienko, they developed neurostimulation technology spinal cord below the site of injury and tested it on rats.

Magnetic nanosand grains by Artyom Oganov

The creator continued to delight with his discoveries. new chemistry", Skoltech professor Artyom Oganov, who, using his USPEX structure modeling algorithm, discovers new, completely impossible substances. A new calculation by Oganov's group, published in the journal Nanoscale, revealed an absolutely amazing substance. Since school, we know that the “formula of sand” is SiO2. Either the quartz formula or the silica formula. However, Oganov’s calculations showed that in an oxygen atmosphere at room temperature, completely different particles of silica dust or sand should dominate: Si7O19. This particle is amazing not only for its shape and oxygen enrichment; any school chemistry teacher would give a bad mark for such a formula. The presence of O3 “tails” in it indicates that it must be magnetic! And it is precisely this shape of the particles that may explain the fact that those who breathe silica dust are at high risk of developing cancer.

Gravitational waves

For the discovery of gravity in 2017, they will probably be awarded Nobel Prize in physics. This discovery, waves of space from the merger of two black holes, was recorded by the LIGO laser interferometer. Few people know that a major contribution to both the theory of gravitational waves and the creation of the LIGO project was made by Moscow physicist Vladimir Braginsky, who made such discoveries as quantum fluctuations, quantum limits, created methods for quantum measurements, and generally founded the Moscow LIGO collaboration group.

Illustration copyright Science Photo Library Image caption Schrödinger's paradox has been known for a long time, but it has not yet been possible to demonstrate it at the physical level.

The discovery of gravitational waves in space-time, as well as the first practical demonstration of the famous Schrödinger paradox, are included in the list of the largest achievements in physics for 2016, according to Physics World magazine.

It also includes the discovery of the first exoplanet in the closest star system to us.

Detection of gravitational waves, recognized as the biggest discovery of the year, was achieved by the LIGO scientific community, which includes more than 80 scientific institutions around the world.

The community uses several laboratories trying to detect deviations in the structure of space-time that occur when a powerful laser pulse passes through a vacuum tunnel.

The first signal they detected was the product of a collision between two black holes at a distance of more than a billion light years from Earth.

According to Hamish Johnston, editor of Physics World, which published the list of achievements, these observations were the first direct evidence of the existence of black holes.

Illustration copyright LIGO/T. Pyle/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Image caption Albert Einstein was the first to suggest the possibility of the existence of gravitational waves

Other major physics discoveries of the year include:

Shroedinger `s cat: Scientists have been puzzling over the mystery of Schrödinger's cat for many years. This is a thought experiment by Austrian scientist Erwin Schrödinger. The cat is in the box. The box contains a mechanism containing radioactive atomic nucleus and a container with poisonous gas. The paradox is that an animal can be alive or dead at the same time. You can find out for sure only by opening the box. This means that opening the box highlights one of the cat's many states. But before the box is opened, the animal cannot be considered alive or dead - the cat can be in two states at the same time.

However, American and French physicists were for the first time able to trace the state of a cat using the example of the internal structure of a molecule, which manifests itself in the simultaneous presence of the system in two quantum states.

To do this, specialists brought the molecules into an excited state using an X-ray laser (razer). Physicists compiled a video from the obtained diffraction patterns of high spatial and temporal resolution.

Compact "gravimeter": Scientists from the University of Glasgow have built a gravimeter that can very accurately measure gravity on Earth. This is a compact, accurate and inexpensive device. The device can be used in searching for minerals, in construction and in the study of volcanoes.

The closest exoplanet to us: Astronomers have discovered signs of the presence of a planet in the habitable zone in the Proxima Centauri system. This planet, called Proxima b, has a mass of only 1.3 more than Earth and may have liquid water on its surface.

Illustration copyright ESO/M.Kornmesser Image caption This is what the surface of the planet Proxima b might look like

Quantum entanglement: A group of physicists from the United States was able to demonstrate for the first time the effect of quantum mechanical entanglement using the example of a macroscopic mechanical system.

The development of experimental methods for studying quantum systems and testing techniques for entangling various kinds of objects should, according to physicists’ forecasts, lead to the emergence of fundamentally new computers.

Miracle material: Scientists were able to measure for the first time a property of the graphene material - the so-called negative refraction. This phenomenon can be used to create new types of optical devices, for example, extremely sensitive lenses and objectives.

Atomic clock: German physicists discovered the transmutation of the thorium-229 isotope, which could become the basis for the design of a new type of atomic clock. Such clocks will be much more stable than existing devices of this type.

Optics for microscopes: Scottish scientists from the University of Strathclyde have created a new type of lens for microscopes, called Mesolens. The new lenses have large field vision and high resolution.

Illustration copyright Mesolens Image caption These structures in the brain of rats were recorded by a new microscope based on Mesolens lenses

Superfast computer: Austrian scientists have achieved major success in the development of quantum computers. They created a model fundamental interactions elementary particles, which can be used by prototype quantum computers.

Nuclear engine: Scientists from the University of Mainz in Germany have developed a prototype heat engine that consists of a single atom. It converts the difference in temperature into mechanical work, placing a single calcium ion in a funnel-shaped trap.

Achievements that are certainly useful - victory over fever, harmless - pentaquarks have been found, interesting - psychology is still not exactly a science, and those that make you think hard

Another year is coming to an end on our journey into a future that is frightening and alluring. The main engine of this movement is science, but where exactly is it leading civilization? The answer becomes clearer if we sum up the results, highlight the most important scientific breakthroughs of the outgoing year, the prospects for their development and their authors - “progressors” in our terminology .

1. Defeated Ebola

Breakthrough: The Ebola vaccine turned out to work, and the vaccination campaign was effective.

Progressors: Agency public health Canada and the pharmaceutical company Merck.

Details: Where did Ebola go? Russian (and perhaps not only Russian) TV viewers began asking this question around mid-2015, when the main “horror story” of the last few months stopped appearing in news stories. Some even spoke out in the spirit of conspiracy theories: they say that they frightened us with information about the epidemic in order to distract us from something more important and terrible, and when they distracted us, they stopped frightening us. In fact, everything is simpler: it was by mid-summer that the disease outbreaks began to decline - the vaccine developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada and improved by the pharmaceutical company Merck began to work.

The epidemic, which began in March 2014 in Guinea and became the largest since the discovery of the Ebola virus, spurred researchers and work that could otherwise have taken a decade was done in 10 months. The vaccine has been created. In April 2015, doctors administered the first vaccinations to people. Over the course of three months, 100 people infected with Ebola were selected for the experiment, and more than 2 thousand relatives and fellow tribesmen of the infected were vaccinated. It later turned out that of the people who received the vaccine, only 16 people got sick. Vaccination began to be carried out on a systematic basis: as soon as a person who has contracted Ebola is identified, everyone in his immediate circle is immediately sent “for an injection.”

Before the start of the vaccination campaign, doctors constantly recorded new cases of the disease. After the advent of the vaccine, the Ebola epidemic began to gradually subside.

Prospects: World organization Health officials believe that the effectiveness of the new vaccine will be in the range of 75 to 100 percent. If the drug had been developed at least a year and a half earlier, thousands of people would have been saved: the 2014–2015 epidemic killed 11,315 people, and more than 28 thousand more were ill but were able to survive. In the first two weeks of December 2015, Ebola did not manifest itself even once. It is impossible to count how many lives the vaccine will help save in the future, but WHO representatives are already saying that for the first time in 40 years, the rules of the game are changing: now the advantage is on the side of the person, not the virus.

2. We flew to Pluto

Breakthrough: The New Horizons probe reached Pluto and collected a wealth of data about the dwarf planet and its moon Charon.

Progressors: NASA, although we owe just as much to Percival Lowell, who predicted the existence of Pluto, and Cloud Tombaugh, who discovered it.

Details: The New Horizons mission launched back in 2006, when Pluto was still considered a full-fledged planet, and no one had heard of Facebook, for example. For nine long years, the spacecraft steadily approached Pluto, mostly staying in hibernation mode and only waking up from time to time to adjust course and photograph whatever came to hand. space objects. The objects, I must say, came across just right: the clouds of Jupiter alone are worth it. And while flying past Io, New Horizons took a series of pictures that revealed volcanic bursts on its surface, which were then even stitched together into a full-fledged video (the first video of a volcano erupting outside the Earth!). But all this was just preparation for the great success that awaited the probe in 2015. Color photographs of Pluto and its faithful satellite Charon were obtained. Even people far from astronomy started talking about photographs with the “heart of Pluto” (the nitrogen sea).

Prospects: In total, the device observed Pluto for 9 days, during which it collected about 50 gigabits of information. Now he is slowly transmitting the collected data to Earth. As NASA says, the transmission will continue until the end of 2016, because its speed does not exceed 2000 bits per second. The information obtained will allow us to test some hypotheses, for example, about the presence of water under the ocean ice, or about the composition of the atmosphere of a dwarf planet. But the mission will not end there: on January 1, 2019, a flyby of asteroid 2014 MU69, a typical representative of the Kuiper belt, is planned. Perhaps it will be possible to find some other worthy targets to which the probe will be sent. But New Horizons has already achieved a lot. IN last time humanity received photographs of an uncharted planet in 1989 - then it was Neptune. And more unexplored planets in solar system there are none left.

3. Human genes edited

Breakthrough: The CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing method was tested on human genes and improved.

Progressors : Genetic engineers from China and the USA.

Details: Last year, breakthrough experiments continued with the revolutionary and simple gene editing method CRISPR/Cas9, which gives us the ability to use special enzymes to find the desired section of DNA and change it by cutting out or adding lines of genetic program code. The most scandalous was the experiment of Chinese bioengineers who tested the method on initially non-viable human embryos. The result disappointed even the scientists themselves: out of 86 embryos, only in 28 the replacement complex managed to contact the desired section of DNA. The experiment was criticized, including by the journal Nature. In a critical article, scientists were urged not to use the method on humans due to large quantity unwanted mutations and unpredictable consequences and drew attention to the fact that failures in experiments cast a shadow on successful attempts to treat individual organs using this system. However, very soon American scientists managed to increase the efficiency of the CRISPR/Cas9 method by an order of magnitude, reducing the number of errors to almost zero. We are very close to the technical possibility of editing the human genome.

Prospects: At a summit dedicated to editing the human genome, scientists decided that the time had not yet come to edit the genes that are inherited before the birth of a child. This temporary ban does not apply to treatment, the results of which will not be inherited. They did not completely ban “correcting” the human genome, reasoning that there will always be those who decide to break the ban. Genetic engineering will need to perfect its techniques to provide the key to editing inherited genes. At the first stage, this will make it possible to cure some diseases that are caused by changes in individual genes, and in the long term, perhaps, to the appearance different options“posthumans” experimenting with their genome.

4. They dug up a “transition link”

Breakthrough: the remains of the most ancient people, called Homo naledi, were analyzed - judging by the anatomical structure, these are the earliest representatives of the human race, who lived 2-3 million years ago and claim to be a “transitional link” between australopithecine monkeys and humans.

Progressors: Lee Berger and the paleoanthropologists working with him.

Details: In 2013, two speleologists discovered a passage into a small chamber in a narrow tunnel of the Rising Star cave system, at the bottom of which rested sensational bones. Paleontologist Lee Berger organized a large-scale expedition to the cave, which is now called Dinaledi. Only the most slender researchers had a chance to see a wealth unprecedented for a paleontologist: in the cave they found one almost complete skeleton, a perfectly preserved hand and foot, and in total more than one and a half thousand fragments of skeletons of 15 people of different sexes and ages. A touch of mystery added to the sensational nature of this discovery. Only one tunnel led into the cave, long and extremely narrow, and geologists claimed that there had never been another way. Scientists have found no traces human activity: transporting water, making tools, fire, which could have allowed ancient people to navigate the cave. But how and, most importantly, why did they get through the “skinner” into this cell? Did they grope their way through in search of shelter or a place to die in peace, or did their fellow tribesmen organize something like a primitive cemetery in the cave, dragging bodies there? Dating fossils could help answer this question. To do this, scientists needed to examine the sediment on the bones, the composition of flora and fauna, volcanic tuff or sand. But there was nothing of this in the closed cave, except for stone dust from the walls and ceiling, which covered the discovered bones with a layer 15 centimeters thick. And the main news was that the researchers discovered ancestors not already known to science, such as australopithecines, whose remains were often found in this area.

As a result of research, a group of anthropologists described the new kind our ancestors - Homo naledi, or “star man” (“naledi” translates as “star” from the South African Sesotho language). Two articles published so far describe in detail the features of the hands and feet ancient man. The structure of the hand indicates that Homo naledi made tools, were skilled tree climbers and, for an as yet unknown reason, had very developed thumbs. The “star man”’s legs turned out to be long, and his feet were not much different from modern ones, so he was adapted to long runs.

Prospects: Exact location on family tree for Homo naledi has not yet been found, nor has the age of the fossils been established. To do this, scientists will need to radiocarbon date the bones and further study the Rising Star cave system.

5. Caught a pentaquark

Breakthrough: In July, physicists announced the discovery of a new class of particles whose existence scientists predicted half a century ago but could not prove - pentaquarks.

Progressors: The article telling about the discovery of the pentaquark has about 700 authors, and in general, the honor of discoveries made at the Large Hadron Collider is shared among thousands of people who created it and are working there now.

Details: Quarks are fundamental particles from which two classes are formed composite particles: baryons (these are protons and neutrons that make up the nucleus of an atom) and mesons. Baryons consist of three quarks, and mesons consist of two: a quark and an antiquark. Typically, quarks do not form complex structures - if you put several quarks together, they do not combine, but immediately decay into mesons and baryons. Modern physics is not yet able to explain why this happens, since theoretically nothing prevents quarks from combining into groups of 4 or 5 particles: into tetra- or pentaquarks.

The possibility of such associations was substantiated in 1964, and since then physicists have conducted dozens of experiments in attempts to find particles consisting of two quarks and two antiquarks (tetraquarks) and four quarks and one antiquark (pentaquarks). By the end of the first decade of the 2000s, more than 10 teams of scientists from different countries announced positive results in the search for pentaquarks. But none of these results were confirmed in larger experiments. The search for a pentaquark began to be considered a thankless task and doomed to failure.

The discovery at the Large Hadron Collider was made almost by accident: physicists were studying the decay of a lambda baryon and unexpectedly saw a pentaquark. Considering the bad reputation of the pentaquark, physicists approached the study of the discovered particle very seriously, measuring the mass, parameters and quantum numbers for a long time, and rechecking the results. In the end, data of very high statistical significance were obtained - the existence of a new class of particles was officially proven.

Prospects: A pentaquark is not just a new particle, but a way of combining quarks into a multicomponent ordered structure, about the properties of which we still know little. The Large Hadron Collider detected two pentaquarks at once, similar in mass, and now physicists will try to explain how this is possible. It will probably be possible to discover different types of pentaquarks.

6. Most psychological research has been shown to be unreliable.

Breakthrough: It turned out that out of 100 psychological experiments, only 39 can be reproduced. The results obtained should lead to a change in the process of obtaining scientific knowledge.

Progressors: Collaboration for Open Science, led by Brian Nozek.

Details: Reproducibility of results is one of the main properties of science. What's the point of saying that you managed to carry out a controlled thermonuclear reaction, in which the energy produced exceeded the energy expended, if no one can then repeat your success? After all, this will actually mean that humanity has not received anything new, even if you are right. The results psychological research They often promise quite a lot and sound quite loud. Everyone wonders whether, for example, the fear reaction is different in children and adults. However, it turned out that confirming the results of such experiments is not so easy. Psychologists from the Collaboration for Open Science during four years were engaged in reproducing experiments published in leading psychological journals, and the results of this study were disappointing. According to scientists, they were able to reproduce only 39 out of 100 papers, and this despite the fact that 97% of the original publications declared the statistical significance of their result. Well... It could be worse, couldn't it?

Prospects: Of course, at first glance, this result does not at all look like a breakthrough in science. After all, it means that psychological experiments are most often carried out incorrectly, or the reliability of their results is incorrectly assessed. But it is much better if the problem is recognized and corrected than when everyone diligently pretends that it does not exist. This is where the research from the Collaboration for Open Science comes in handy. Scientists, realizing that the statistical significance of the results does not always allow us to judge the importance of the discovery, will try to make research process more transparent, and the results are more reliable. Perhaps a whole one awaits us soon scientific revolution, which will radically change the ways of obtaining knowledge in psychology. And at the same time, you see, they will trust psychological experiments more.

7. A new type of antibiotic was isolated

Breakthrough: In July, the journal Nature published an article about the discovery, for the first time in 30 years, of a new class of antibiotics - teixobactin.

Progressors: The antibiotic was “grown” by a team of biologists from the USA, Germany and Great Britain.

Details: Most of the antibiotics used today were created in the 60s of the 20th century, and since then many bacteria have developed resistance to them. Some dangerous diseases, such as tuberculosis, were once suppressed by ordinary penicillin. But now tuberculosis and other half-forgotten infections may once again become mass killers.

The paradox is that it is partly because of the rapidity with which any new antibiotics lose their effectiveness that pharmaceutical companies have stopped investing in modifying existing drugs and finding new forms. They gave up, one might say. The problem of bacterial resistance to antibiotics is called one of the main threats to humanity in the near future.

Researchers at NovoBiotics Pharmaceuticals have used a completely new method for producing antibiotics. They did not turn to known strains that can be grown in the laboratory, but decided to look for a new antibiotic in the main source of bacteria - in the soil. Scientists have developed a device that can be lowered into the ground and allow bacteria to grow in their natural environment. The substances that these bacteria released during their life processes were then tested on mice infected with dangerous diseases. One of these substances had pronounced antibiotic properties and turned out to be very effective against most gram-positive bacteria that are resistant to all other antibiotics. This is a new type of antibiotic.

Typically, antibiotics “spoil” the proteins of bacteria, and they respond by adapting to its attacks by changing the structure of the protein so that it becomes insensitive to the antibiotic. But the substance found damages such important enzymes responsible for the construction of the bacterial cell wall that any change in them is fatal to the bacterium. Provided that the new antibiotic is used with great caution - only in cases where other drugs are powerless, bacteria will be able to develop resistance to it no sooner than in 30-40 years.

Prospects: The company plans to bring the new drug to market within five years, and it will be a salvation for those who currently cannot be cured. However, this is not the main achievement of scientists: the method of searching for new antibiotics that they discovered may open new era in the creation of antibiotics and we will have something to counter the threat of global epidemics caused by mutated bacteria.

8. Decided to cool the planet

Breakthrough: Strictly speaking, this is not scientific achievement, but diplomatic and public, but on a scientific basis and very important. In December, UN countries adopted a new climate agreement - the Paris Agreement. According to him, by the end of the century the planet should not warm by more than two degrees Celsius. Countries are committed to doing everything possible to reduce this threshold to even one and a half degrees.

Progressors: Representatives of all humanity - the Paris Agreement was accepted by 195 countries of the world.

Prospects: Over the past 5,000 years, the Earth has warmed by only 4-5°C, but from 1980 to 2020, the temperature on the planet's surface has increased by 0.25°C every decade. In the UN's pessimistic scenario, the planet will warm by 2.6–4.8°C in the 21st century, affecting the lives of billions of people. Melting glaciers, which will lead to rising sea levels and flooding of islands and coasts of continents, drought and global disasters, these are only part of the predicted consequences.

Industry and energy in most countries of the world depend on the combustion of fossil fuels. It is this process that is most responsible for emissions greenhouse gases, which, according to most scientists, provoke global warming. Giving up fossil fuels is now impossible, but as part of the agreement, UN countries agreed to work towards a gradual transition to a carbon-free economy. Energy will be spent more efficiently, countries will introduce new, environmentally friendly technologies, use renewable energy sources and diversify economies where they are too dependent on the production and consumption of hydrocarbon fuels. Each country independently determines how much it will be able to reduce emissions.

The conference participants in Paris were aware that such serious transformations could cause difficulties in the economies of many countries, both suppliers and active consumers of hydrocarbon fuels. The most vulnerable countries will receive financial support annually from other states, various international organizations and commercial sector. States will create an emissions market, introduce a new tax and stimulate investment in new energy and industry.

Prospects: The Paris Agreement is legally binding, but has not yet been signed. For it to come into force, it must be ratified by at least 55 countries. This process will begin in April 2016 and will continue throughout the year. If the agreement is signed and countries adhere to the commitments it sets out, humanity will have a better chance of keeping the planet as it has been for the last 5,000 years.

9. Connected animal brains into a working network

Breakthrough: Neuroscientists at Duke University connected the brains of several rats into a network and forced the network to solve problems.

Progressors: Miguel Nicolesis and his laboratory staff.

Details: Scientists have approached the problem of mutual understanding radically. Neuroscientists from Duke University combined the brains of four adult rats, and the resulting “brainet” (brain network) solved quite vital tasks, such as image processing, storing and retrieving information, and even predicting the weather. In a way, a kind of organic computer was obtained, the productivity of which exceeded the productivity of a separate brain. What the test rats thought about this, unfortunately, is not reported. But it would be interesting to know what it’s like to have a common brain for four...

Prospects: Nicolesis’s research contributes to the development of brain-computer interfaces and methods of rehabilitation of people with impaired motor functions, but the main thing here is rather that a precedent has been created for the practical implementation of “Brainet”. Moreover, four unfortunate rats tied with electrodes are transferred from the category of science fiction to the category of promising technological projects “neuronet” - a future analogue of the Internet, in which the interaction of people, animals and machines is carried out using neurocommunications. It's hard to even imagine what kind of life this will bring to people. Perhaps a person connected by a nervous network with the world will not have a separate “I” at all, only “We” will remain, much like in the famous dystopia of Yevgeny Zamyatin.

10. Reversed the aging process

Breakthrough: A method has been developed that makes it possible to lengthen human telomeres, the end sections of chromosomes, by as much as a thousand nucleotides, the length of which largely determines the aging process of our body.

Progressors: A team of researchers from Stanford University led by Helen Blau.

Details: The reproduction of healthy cells in the body occurs through their division. During each division, the ends of the telomeres become smaller. In young people, telomeres are equivalent to 8-10 thousand nucleotides in length. As we grow and age, these “caps” decrease and at some point reach the point of “no return” - the cell stops dividing and finally dies. And the gradual death of cells, which carries with it the “littering” of the body, is, as many scientists believe, main reason aging.

The dependence of the body's aging processes on the state of telomeres was known before, as was the fact that a healthy lifestyle slows down their shortening, but Stanford researchers proposed a fundamentally different method: they proved that it is possible to use external medical intervention to directly increase the end sections of chromosomes.

Main tool new technology became a modified RNA carrying the telomerase reverse transcriptase gene. After the introduction of such RNA, the cells begin to behave like young ones and actively divide. True, the elongated ends of telomeres begin to shorten again with each new division.

Prospects: People have always been looking for the answer to the question “How to live happily ever after.” And if happiness is not so simple, then thanks to the results of completed research, we have a good chance of significantly extending our days. Continuing research promises success in creating drugs, the regular use of which will increase the active life of the cells that make up our body, which means that we will get a few extra years to find the answer to the second part of the question - about happiness.

Fruits of progress

10 technologies that entered people's lives in 2015

1.Hoverboard instead of hoverboard

For an entire generation, 2015 was, among other things, the year Marty McFly arrived in Back to the Future. Unlike the film, in today's reality there are no hoverboards (that is, flying skateboards) yet to be seen. But hoverboards are rapidly becoming fashionable. According to the developers, the device, consisting of a horizontal platform for the feet and two wheels controlled by two electric motors, works like the human vestibular apparatus: gyroscopic sensors signal the electric motors to rotate forward or backward when shifting the center of gravity. forward) accordingly. While hoverboards are being used more and more by celebrities and lovers of advanced gadgets, it is possible that these devices will soon supplant scooters and roller skates. The only thing left for hoverboards to do is become safer.

2.Genetically modified animals

The past year has brought several important advances in the proliferation of lab-created animals. Genetically modified mosquitoes developed by the British company Oxitec have been released in the Brazilian city of Piracicaba as a means of fighting fever. An artificial mutation in the genes of male mosquitoes transfers to females a gene that kills their offspring before puberty. This measure should sharply reduce the population of fever-carrying mosquitoes.

Another big news was the approval for the production and consumption of the first GM animal in the United States. It was AquAdvantage salmon with embedded DNA that affects the growth of the fish. Salmon was considered equally safe for both human health and the environment.

3.Small, fast, cheap courier

We're not talking about gnomes, but about small drones aircraft With remote control. The number of drones used for commercial purposes grew exponentially in 2015. Already, they deliver goods to customers, monitor the situation on the roads and are used for many other purposes, the range of which will only expand: for example, drones will soon transmit an Internet signal to the most remote corners of the Earth. The largest American online store, Amazon, promises in the near future, using a new service, to deliver goods weighing up to 2.3 kg within half an hour and for only 1 dollar. And in Japan, the police are launching drones equipped with networks into the sky: there are so many drones that there is a need to catch potentially dangerous ones.

4. Personalized reality

In 2015, Facebook gave users the ability to tag posts from people they did or didn't want to see in their news feed. Until this point, the user’s news feed was filled completely automatically: the computer analyzed the history of his likes, comments and views in order to identify preferences and fill the feed with information that might be of interest to him. Now the machine also analyzes which publications you consciously prioritize or exclude from your feed, so that you have to do this as little as possible. However, the ability to independently participate in the formation of the news feed has completely changed the function social network. Now this is not just a site that you go to to find out what's new in the lives of your friends, and not even to find out the news. This is an information space where you will learn exactly and only what you want to know.

5.Internet for light bulbs

In the world of artificial lighting, as elsewhere in life, the digital revolution and general “internetization” are unfolding - only instead of people, lamps are connected to the network. Lighting technologies are merging with information technology thanks to light-emitting diodes (in English - LED) - this is a semiconductor device that emits light when current is passed through it. LEDs are much more economical than other light bulbs, but their most attractive feature is that their parameters can be controlled. An exemplary example for the rapidly growing smart lighting market is Philips' Hue, which can be easily controlled from a smartphone, changing color, color temperature and brightness, or setting different program modes - for example, in the early morning the program sets a cool light that encourages people to work, and in the evening - warm, pleasant and calming. And external sensors allow, for example, to automatically adjust the lighting level depending on the weather and time of day. Changes in lighting that occur thanks to LEDs are important not only in everyday life - in the past year they began to be used in agriculture, which is becoming less and less “rural” - crops are grown in rooms with artificially controlled light, where for each type of, say, salad , the optimal parameters of light radiation are selected.

6.Assembling robots at home

Microcomputers and ready-made kits for creating your own electronic devices experienced a boom in 2015. The community of makers was also gaining popularity - this is what they now call “homemade people” who love to make “smart” devices at home, for themselves. Now anyone can assemble their own robot based on a programmable mini-computer like Galileo or Edison, several sensors and connected to a global network - the range of constructors is expanding, the cost of components is decreasing, it is becoming easier to connect and combine them, and educational materials available online for free. In 2015, giants such as Intel, IBM, Microsoft and Amazon offered users a “cloud” infrastructure for managing home-made devices, storing and processing the data they create. By the way, processing data coming from such crafts around the world can open a new era in the “digitization of the world” and the formation of various databases.

7.Breaking language barriers

Interaction between people speaking different languages, has always been huge problem. It is difficult to even imagine the global world order and culture without language barriers, but it seems that the people of the planet will begin to understand each other without a translator very soon. In 2015, Skype launched a service for simultaneous speech translation of interlocutors speaking English, German and French(and translation of SMS messages from 50 languages ​​of the world). This is clearly just the beginning of a revolution in the world of automated simultaneous translation - it seems the time has finally come to complete the Tower of Babel.

8.Supercomputer as a doctor

IBM, the creator of the Watson supercomputer, launched the IBM Watson Health cloud platform in the spring. Simply put, artificial intelligence Watson now lives in the cloud and is used to analyze medical data. In particular, it helps doctors more accurately diagnose and select treatment. IBM has already entered into several agreements with major global brands operating in the field of healthcare services. Watson was trained to work with large amounts of medical data so that this artificial intelligence could draw on the expertise of researchers from around the world. Watson is constantly improving, receiving new data, helping to individualize recommendations for the patient and making mistakes less often than two-legged doctors.

9.Children from three parents

The UK government approved changes to the law in February to allow mitochondrial donation, making the UK the first country in which children can have genes from three parents rather than two. Mitochondria are tiny, but have their own genome “accumulators” of a living cell. Approximately 6,500 children a year worldwide are born with mitochondrial DNA defects that are fatal or lead to severe brain damage. Mitochondrial DNA in humans, it is transmitted only through the maternal line - and scientists have figured out how to get rid of damage by transplanting mitochondria from a healthy woman at the stage of “in vitro conception”. Before the vote, there was debate in the House of Commons for more than two hours, and the position of the supporters of the amendment, led by the Minister of Health, turned out to be more convincing for the majority of parliamentarians than the position of the church and other opponents of the amendment.

10. Computers have gained vision

Capturing an image in a photograph or video is not the same as “seeing”, that is, “understanding” what exactly is depicted there. Teaching machines to see means teaching them to name objects, recognize people, understand relationships, emotions, actions and intentions. In the past year, a major step was taken in this direction - thanks to neural network methods of the so-called “deep learning”, programs began to appear that can recognize objects, sometimes even better than people, and even describe in sentences what they saw in a photograph. Of course, this is not yet a full-fledged vision - for example, a computer cannot appreciate the beauty of a painting. But gradually machines gain vision. In the very near future there will be a mechanism for searching information on keywords in countless photographs and videos on the Internet. Step by step, and we will not notice how we will perceive the world through not only our own, but also computer eyes.