Science review of 2009

Water found on the moon, Large Hadron Collider sabotage theories and that barbecue summer..

Moon shows presence of Water

Moon shows presence of Water

Water found on the Moon

A new chapter in space exploration opened up after Nasa confirmed that a mission to ”bomb” the Moon had found “significant quantities” of frozen water.

Scientists said the “exciting” findings had gone “beyond expectations” as fully formed ice was found in a crater on the planet.

They said that the ice – thought to be in granules mixed with grains of dust – heralded a leap forward in space exploration and boosted hopes of a permanent lunar base.

The water was found in the one-mile high plume of debris that was kicked up by the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) when it crashed into the Cabeus crater near the Moon’s south pole.

“We are ecstatic,” said Anthony Colaprete, the project scientist and principal investigator for the £49 million mission.

“Indeed, yes, we found water. And we didn’t find just a little bit, we found a signifi-cant amount.”

Meet Ardi, our oldest known ancestor

The discovery of a short, ape like creature, that lived more than four million years ago just as humans began walking on two legs was the most important breakthrough of the year, according to one of the most prestigious science magazines.

Ardi – a seven stone, four-foot tall female who roamed African forests 4.4million years ago- was the oldest member of the human family tree found so far, pre-dating the previous ancestor “Lucy” by a million years.

Her discovery, reported in October issue of Science, sheds light on a crucial period when we were just leaving the trees.

Her skeleton, found in Ethiopia, promises to fill in gaps about how we became human and evolved from apes. It has already reversed some common assumptions of evolution.

Rather than humans evolving from chimps, the find provides evidence that chimps and humans evolved together from another common, more ancient ancestor.

While she was not exactly this “missing link”, she was described as its “cousin”.

In what he described as a “eureka moment”, analysis of the debris showed the equivalent of “a dozen two-gallon buckets” of water was thrown up by the impact.

Climate change

The world’s leading scientists issued a desperate plea to politicians to act on climate change, amid warnings that without action the world faces decades of social unrest and war.

In what was described as a watershed moment, more than 2,500 leading environmental experts agreed a statement that called on governments to act before the planet becomes an unrecognisable — and, in places, impossible — place to live.

At an emergency climate summit in Copenhagen, scientists agreed that “worst case” scenarios were already becoming reality and that, unless drastic action was taken soon, “dangerous climate change” was imminent.

In a strongly worded message that, unusually for academics, appealed directly to politicians, they said there was “no excuse for inaction” and that “weak and “ineffective” governments must stand up to big business and “vested interests”.

Steps should be “vigorously and widely implemented”, they said, to reduce greenhouse gases. Failure to do so would result in “significant risk” of “irreversible climatic shifts”, the statement added.

Neanderthal man’s genetic make-up unlocked

Neanderthal man has come a step closer to once again walking the earth after scientists unlocked the genetic make-up of our closest relative for the first time.

Researchers announced that they had managed to reconstruct the entire DNA of the former species in a breakthrough that follows a similar feat for the mammoth.

Now they believe the milestone could help discover why Neanderthal man, a short, hairier version of modern humans, became extinct 30,000 years ago.

It also raises the possibility – although played down by scientists – that the code could be used to create a living version of the creature.

Professor Svante Pääbo, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, sequenced more than a billion DNA fragments extracted from three fossilised Neanderthal bones found in a cave in Croatia.

Is the Large Hadron Collider sabotaging itself?

Probably the most outlandish claim of the year: physicists claimed the Large Hadron Collider is being sabotaged by its future self.

Two distinguished physicists have theorised that nature itself is stopping the troubled £4.4billion project from getting off the ground.

Holger Nielsen, a professor at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, and Masao Ninomiya, of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, Japan, have postulated that the LHC’s search for the Higgs Boson, a theoretical tiny particle and potentially one of the building blocks of life, could be hampered by the very thing it was designed to find.

The pair have outlined their thoughts in papers with titles like “Test of Effect From Future in Large Hadron Collider: a Proposal” and “Search for Future Influence From LHC”.

Their theory is that the particle might be so abhorrent to nature that it will “ripple backward through time” and stop the collider before it can produce one, akin to Marty McFly endangering his own existence in the Back to the Future films.

That barbecue Summer we were promised…

Met office forecasters predicted the “barbecue summer” with hot and dry weather temperatures regularly reaching 86F (30C).

They confidently predicted that temperatures would be above average and rainfall low, with a number of small heatwaves.

Unfortunately while temperatures were higher than normal so were rainfall figures.

July was one of the wettest on record and overall rainfall was 40 per cent higher than normal.

First British astronaut

Army helicopter pilot Timothy Peake is to be the first astronaut in space under the British flag.

Major Peake, 37, has been named as one of six astronauts chosen to undertake European Space Agency missions ‘to the Moon and beyond’.

He described his selection as ‘a unique opportunity’.

‘Becoming an astronaut is a culmination of a childhood dream and the pinnacle of my aviation career,’ he said.

Major Peake, who lives in Salisbury, Wiltshire, with his wife Rebecca and their newborn son Thomas, was selected from more than 8,400 applicants.

He will now undergo 18 months’ training at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany.

His selection came as something of a surprise as the UK has opted out of the agency’s human spaceflight programme.

However, ESA insisted the new astronauts were selected ‘on merit alone’.

Human sperm created using sperm cells

British scientists have created human sperm using stem cells in a technique that could revolutionise fertility treatment.

Researchers at the Northeast England Stem Cell Institute, who made the breakthrough using cells from an embryo, said that with some minor changes the sperm could theoretically fertilise an egg to create a child.

They hoped that within 10 years the technique could be used to allow infertile couples to have children that were genetically their own. It could even be possible to create sperm from female stem cells, they said, which could mean a woman having a baby without a man.

The announcement from the institute which is made up of Newcastle and Durham Universities and Newcastle NHS Foundation, marked the first time that human sperm had been created in a laboratory and threatened to reopen the fierce debate over embryo research. It was reported in the respected journal Stem Cells and Development.

The paper was later withdrawn due to plagiarism of two paragraphs but the researchers stood by their work.

New periodic table element named

A new element added to the periodic table has been named in honour of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.

Copernicium, discovered 13 years ago and previously known as element 112, was officially added to the table only a few weeks ago. It is the heaviest element in the periodic table, 277 times heavier than hydrogen, and is produced by a nuclear fusion, bombarding zinc ions on to a lead target.

With the symbol Cp, it has been named in honour of Copernicus, who deduced that the planets revolved around the Sun. “We agreed on the name to honour an outstanding scientist,” said Prof Sigurd Hofmann, who led the German team that discovered the new element.

New fertility treatment step

Scientists moved a step closer to creating human sperm and eggs from stem cells in research that could end infertility problems.

Researchers at Stanford University, who harvested the stem cells from an embryo, believe the breakthrough could eventually cure infertility in men, birth defects and even extend the onset of menopause.

Previous studies have claimed to have reproduced egg and sperm cells in the laboratory but they were always slightly damaged or malformed.

The researchers in the latest study believe their germ cells — the cells that eventually turn into sperm and eggs — are so perfect it would be possible to grow them into fully functioning reproductive cells.

The scientists, who published their findings in Nature, claim to have unlocked the genetic “recipe” that leads to these unique cells being formed.

They used human embryonic stem cells from excess IVF embryos and treated them with proteins to stimulate the growth of germ cells.

It is estimated that one in seven couples in Britain — about 3.5million people — has difficulty conceiving. In about a third of couples undergoing IVF treatment, male fertility is a contributory factor.

Britain’s own ‘Nasa’

Britain announces it is to set up its own Nasa-like agency to take the country into a new space age .

The new organisation has not yet been named but is likely to be called the British Space Agency. It will represent this country in all dealings with international partners.

The announcement, made by Lord Drayson, the Science Minister, follows a 12-week consultation with academics, industry representatives and government departments.

Britain spends about £270million a year on space projects, most of it via its membership of the European Space Agency. The industry contributes approximately £6.5billion a year to the British economy.

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