The Year 2010 in #Science
Nature: 2010: The year in which?…
A round-up of the top science news stories of the past 12 months.
Adam Mann
Natural disasters pummelled Earth
...
Ancient kissing cousins were found
...
Doctors gained new weapons against HIV
...
Scientists unveiled a synthetic genome
...
Climate-change policy stalled
...
Oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico
...
Stem-cell research rode a roller coaster
...
Japan's space agency had a hit and a miss
...
Astronomers joined the dark side
...
The budget crunch hit European science
Nature: 2010 Gallery: Images of the year
Volcanic ash clouds and exploding oil rigs made an emphatic mark on 2010. But the year's most eye-catching photos are not all about disaster. There was plenty of innovation: from record power collisions in the Large Hadron Collider to marine creatures, asteroids, the growth of graphene and colourful views of Earth from space.
Nature: Whatever happened to ...?
Nature looks back on a selection of last year's news stories to find out what happened next.
Nature: Method of the Year 2010
With the capacity to control cellular behaviours using light and genetically encoded light-sensitive proteins, optogenetics has opened new doors for experimentation across biological fields.
Nature: Calm in a crisis
Jane Lubchenco, Nature's Newsmaker of the Year, shows how scientists can help society.
For almost three months this year, a mini-volcano of oil and gas erupted into the Gulf of Mexico and disgorged nearly 5 million barrels of petroleum. Throughout the crisis, a poised scientist gave countless media interviews to explain to a scared and angry public how the US government was striving to contain the damage. Behind the scenes, with decisive leadership, she ran the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - the agency that closed fisheries, tracked oil, protected habitats and assessed the damage to communities and the environment. For her role in the response to the crisis, Jane Lubchenco is Nature's Newsmaker of the Year.
University of California, Berkeley: The Cal Alumni Association Announces the 2011 Alumnus of the Year Steven Chu ’76
December 17, 2010-
Berkeley, California
Steven Chu, who received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1976, has been selected as the 2011 Alumnus of the Year by the Cal Alumni Association (CAA). The United States Secretary of Energy and Nobel laureate is being recognized for his ground-breaking contributions to the fields of biophysics and atomic physics, commitment to addressing climate change, and transformative leadership in energy research and policy. Steven Chu and other distinguished alumni award recipients will be honored at Charter Gala, a benefit for the Cal Alumni Association, on April 9, 2011 from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m. at San Francisco City Hall.
"It is a distinct honor to pay tribute to Dr. Chu by awarding him with the Cal Alumni Association's highest honor," said CAA President Alan C. Mendelson '69. "He will be joining the ranks of Cal's most accomplished alumni." Recent past awardees include Richard N. Goldman '41; Robert D. Haas '64; Thelton E. Henderson '55, J.D. '62; Alice Waters '67; Donald G. Fisher '50; and Warren Hellman '55.
A distinguished scientist and global leader, Dr. Chu has gained renown as the nation's foremost voice in advocating for scientific solutions to the issues of global climate change and the urgent need for carbon-neutral renewable energy sources. As United States Secretary of Energy, Dr. Chu is charged with implementing President Obama's ambitious agenda to invest in clean energy, help reduce our reliance on foreign oil, address global climate crisis, and create millions of jobs.
Nature: Features of the year
The best of our longer reads as selected by our editors.
Nature: News: Reader's choice
The most clicked news and features of 2010.
Nature: The Great Beyond: Reader's choice
The most clicked blog posts of 2010.
Nature: Books & Arts of the year
Our pick of 2010's Books & Arts coverage
Nature: Comment pieces of the year
The highlights of our expert comment pieces, chosen by our editors.
AAAS: Science: The Breakthroughs of 2010 and Insights of the Decade
Until this year, all human-made objects have moved according to the laws of classical mechanics. Back in March, however, a group of researchers designed a gadget that moves in ways that can only be described by quantum mechanics-the set of rules that governs the behavior of tiny things like molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles. In recognition of the conceptual ground this experiment breaks, the ingenuity behind it, and its many potential applications, Science has called this discovery the most significant scientific advance of 2010.
Physicists Andrew Cleland and John Martinis from the University of California at Santa Barbara and their colleagues designed the machine-a tiny metal paddle of semiconductor, visible to the naked eye-and coaxed it into dancing with a quantum groove. First, they cooled the paddle until it reached its “ground state,” or the lowest energy state permitted by the laws of quantum mechanics (a goal long-sought by physicists). They then raised the widget’s energy by a single quantum to produce a purely quantum-mechanical state of motion. They even managed to put the gadget in both states at once, so that it literally vibrated a little and a lot at the same time-a bizarre phenomenon allowed by the weird rules of quantum mechanics.
Science and its publisher, AAAS, have recognized this first quantum machine as the 2010 Breakthrough of the Year. They have also compiled nine other important scientific accomplishments from this past year into a top 10 list, appearing in a special news feature in the journal’s 17 December 2010 issue. Additionally, Science news writers and editors have chosen to spotlight 10 “Insights of the Decade” that have transformed the landscape of science in the 21st century.
Following are three YouTube videos about the above story.
AAAS: 2010 AAAS/Subaru Science Books & Film (SB&F) Winners Announced
With holiday shopping in full swing, AAAS has announced four winners in the annual AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books awards, which include science books for young children up to young adults. The books are examples of great science writing that encourages a better understanding of science topics.
Science: An Award-Winning Year for Science
by David Grimm on 23 December 2010, 12:00 PM
2010 was a banner year for science news and also a good one for Science's news department. This year, our reporting team garnered six awards for stories published in the magazine or online. You can read more about these honors below, and if you want to check out the full stories, we've made them all free with registration. Thanks for your readership-and happy holidays from the news staff at Science.
Scientific American: The Top 10 Science Stories of 2010 [Slide Show]
A microbe with an artificial genome, a volcano with an almost unpronounceable name, a disaster that blackened Gulf waters-these and other events defined this year in science and technology
Scientific American: Readers' choices: Top 10 Scientific American stories of 2010
Our picks for the top 10 science stories of the year were published this week, but who cares what editors at Scientific American think? Below is a list of the stories and features that visitors to our Web site clicked on the most this year.
The trends are interactive features, technology, health and the human experience. Here is what you clicked on the most, ranked in descending order of popularity
Discover: Galleries / The 100 Top Science Stories of 2010
Every year DISCOVER sorts through the scientific accomplishments of the past 12 months, and assembles a list of the coolest experiments, most brilliant discoveries, and most world-changing events. As you page through the countdown to the #1 science story, we think you'll come to the same conclusion we did: 2010 was quite a year.
New Scientist: 2010 review: The year in technology
From cyberwarfare and ray guns to all sorts of extra dimensions in games and video, the future got an awful lot closer in 2010. Here's New Scientist's pick of the biggest technology stories of the year.
New Scientist: 2010 review: 12 best pictures of the year
Our picture editors bring you the most striking images of the year, taken from our Picture of the Day feed.
New Scientist: The most ground-breaking video games of 2010
Which video games had that little bit extra? New Scientist asks the cognoscenti.
Physics World: Physics World reveals its top 10 breakthroughs for 2010
Dec 20, 2010
It was a tough decision, given all the fantastic physics done in 2010. But we have decided to award the Physics World 2010 Breakthrough of the Year to two international teams of physicists at CERN, who have created new ways of controlling antiatoms of hydrogen.
...
We have also awarded nine runners-up mentions (see below) - with second place going to the first direct detection of the spectrum of an exoplanet and third place to the observation of quantum behaviour in an object big enough to be seen with the naked eye.
Physics World: Our favourite pictures of 2010
These are 15 of our favourite images from 2010 presented in no particular order. Some are funny, some instructive and others are just plain beautiful. We hope you enjoy looking at them
Physics World: Top 10 books for 2010
Physics World reviewed more than 60 popular-physics books in 2010. That's more than most people will read in a lifetime, and, without wanting to sound immodest, we think it's also enough to lend weight to our opinion of the year's best. Reviews editor Margaret Harris picks her top 10 for 2010
Physics World: Best of the blog
From the world's smallest horse being named after Albert Einstein to researchers in Japan dunking superconductors into different alcoholic beverages, the world of physics has had its fair share of quirky stories this year. Michael Banks picks the best from the physicsworld.com blog.
Physics World: Look ahead to 2011
Astronomers have had, quite simply, a fabulous last 12 months. Not only did NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory take off in May to study the Sun - sending a wealth of images and data back to Earth - but the WISE sky surveyor successfully sent back its first data studying the universe in the infrared. Meanwhile, researchers in Japan had good reason to celebrate after the Japanese Space Agency's Hayabusa mission successfully brought small specks from an asteroid back to Earth for the first time. Two other existing missions also produced fabulous stuff: the Planck satellite, launched by the European Space Agency in May 2009, provided its first all-sky map, while ESA's Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer, which launched in March 2009, made its first gravity map of Earth.
Science News: 2010 SCIENCE NEWS OF THE YEAR
By Matt Crenson
January 1st, 2011; Vol.179 #1 (p. 18)
A year ago, most geneticists had all but dismissed the notion that humans and Neandertals interbred. But with the cataloging of the full Neandertal genome, announced in May, we now know that people of European and Asian descent really have inherited a small percentage of their DNA from a rival species that went extinct about 30,000 years ago.
That’s not all we now know that we didn’t know way back in the first decade of the 21st century. Then, it was still an open question whether NASA’s Kepler mission would be able to fulfill its goal of detecting Earthlike planets orbiting distant stars. Now Kepler has collected evidence for hundreds of extrasolar planets. And another planet search has found hints of an object that appears to orbit the star Gliese 581 at just the right distance to support life.
This year’s scientific progress hasn’t been limited to the long ago and far away. Last January 1, nobody really understood how cats drink. Now high-speed imaging has revealed that lapping up a saucer of milk is a sophisticated trick of fluid dynamics that involves pulling a column of liquid off the surface and then snapping it up before it splashes back down.
That’s not all, of course. The number of people who have had their full genetic complement cataloged has grown from a handful to hundreds, providing insights into human diversity and disease. New species have been discovered, and others found to be threatened by global warming and other ills. Natural disasters like the Haiti earthquake, and man-made ones like the Gulf oil spill, have challenged and expanded scientists’ understanding of how the Earth works.
Above originally posted as a comment on Daily Kos. Yes, it was a long comment.
A round-up of the top science news stories of the past 12 months.
Adam Mann
Natural disasters pummelled Earth
...
Ancient kissing cousins were found
...
Doctors gained new weapons against HIV
...
Scientists unveiled a synthetic genome
...
Climate-change policy stalled
...
Oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico
...
Stem-cell research rode a roller coaster
...
Japan's space agency had a hit and a miss
...
Astronomers joined the dark side
...
The budget crunch hit European science
Nature: 2010 Gallery: Images of the year
Volcanic ash clouds and exploding oil rigs made an emphatic mark on 2010. But the year's most eye-catching photos are not all about disaster. There was plenty of innovation: from record power collisions in the Large Hadron Collider to marine creatures, asteroids, the growth of graphene and colourful views of Earth from space.
Nature: Whatever happened to ...?
Nature looks back on a selection of last year's news stories to find out what happened next.
Nature: Method of the Year 2010
With the capacity to control cellular behaviours using light and genetically encoded light-sensitive proteins, optogenetics has opened new doors for experimentation across biological fields.
Nature: Calm in a crisis
Jane Lubchenco, Nature's Newsmaker of the Year, shows how scientists can help society.
For almost three months this year, a mini-volcano of oil and gas erupted into the Gulf of Mexico and disgorged nearly 5 million barrels of petroleum. Throughout the crisis, a poised scientist gave countless media interviews to explain to a scared and angry public how the US government was striving to contain the damage. Behind the scenes, with decisive leadership, she ran the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - the agency that closed fisheries, tracked oil, protected habitats and assessed the damage to communities and the environment. For her role in the response to the crisis, Jane Lubchenco is Nature's Newsmaker of the Year.
University of California, Berkeley: The Cal Alumni Association Announces the 2011 Alumnus of the Year Steven Chu ’76
December 17, 2010-
Berkeley, California
Steven Chu, who received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1976, has been selected as the 2011 Alumnus of the Year by the Cal Alumni Association (CAA). The United States Secretary of Energy and Nobel laureate is being recognized for his ground-breaking contributions to the fields of biophysics and atomic physics, commitment to addressing climate change, and transformative leadership in energy research and policy. Steven Chu and other distinguished alumni award recipients will be honored at Charter Gala, a benefit for the Cal Alumni Association, on April 9, 2011 from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m. at San Francisco City Hall.
"It is a distinct honor to pay tribute to Dr. Chu by awarding him with the Cal Alumni Association's highest honor," said CAA President Alan C. Mendelson '69. "He will be joining the ranks of Cal's most accomplished alumni." Recent past awardees include Richard N. Goldman '41; Robert D. Haas '64; Thelton E. Henderson '55, J.D. '62; Alice Waters '67; Donald G. Fisher '50; and Warren Hellman '55.
A distinguished scientist and global leader, Dr. Chu has gained renown as the nation's foremost voice in advocating for scientific solutions to the issues of global climate change and the urgent need for carbon-neutral renewable energy sources. As United States Secretary of Energy, Dr. Chu is charged with implementing President Obama's ambitious agenda to invest in clean energy, help reduce our reliance on foreign oil, address global climate crisis, and create millions of jobs.
Nature: Features of the year
The best of our longer reads as selected by our editors.
Nature: News: Reader's choice
The most clicked news and features of 2010.
Nature: The Great Beyond: Reader's choice
The most clicked blog posts of 2010.
Nature: Books & Arts of the year
Our pick of 2010's Books & Arts coverage
Nature: Comment pieces of the year
The highlights of our expert comment pieces, chosen by our editors.
AAAS: Science: The Breakthroughs of 2010 and Insights of the Decade
Until this year, all human-made objects have moved according to the laws of classical mechanics. Back in March, however, a group of researchers designed a gadget that moves in ways that can only be described by quantum mechanics-the set of rules that governs the behavior of tiny things like molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles. In recognition of the conceptual ground this experiment breaks, the ingenuity behind it, and its many potential applications, Science has called this discovery the most significant scientific advance of 2010.
Physicists Andrew Cleland and John Martinis from the University of California at Santa Barbara and their colleagues designed the machine-a tiny metal paddle of semiconductor, visible to the naked eye-and coaxed it into dancing with a quantum groove. First, they cooled the paddle until it reached its “ground state,” or the lowest energy state permitted by the laws of quantum mechanics (a goal long-sought by physicists). They then raised the widget’s energy by a single quantum to produce a purely quantum-mechanical state of motion. They even managed to put the gadget in both states at once, so that it literally vibrated a little and a lot at the same time-a bizarre phenomenon allowed by the weird rules of quantum mechanics.
Science and its publisher, AAAS, have recognized this first quantum machine as the 2010 Breakthrough of the Year. They have also compiled nine other important scientific accomplishments from this past year into a top 10 list, appearing in a special news feature in the journal’s 17 December 2010 issue. Additionally, Science news writers and editors have chosen to spotlight 10 “Insights of the Decade” that have transformed the landscape of science in the 21st century.
Following are three YouTube videos about the above story.
Click to viewAAAS: 2010 AAAS/Subaru Science Books & Film (SB&F) Winners Announced
With holiday shopping in full swing, AAAS has announced four winners in the annual AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books awards, which include science books for young children up to young adults. The books are examples of great science writing that encourages a better understanding of science topics.
Science: An Award-Winning Year for Science
by David Grimm on 23 December 2010, 12:00 PM
2010 was a banner year for science news and also a good one for Science's news department. This year, our reporting team garnered six awards for stories published in the magazine or online. You can read more about these honors below, and if you want to check out the full stories, we've made them all free with registration. Thanks for your readership-and happy holidays from the news staff at Science.
Scientific American: The Top 10 Science Stories of 2010 [Slide Show]
A microbe with an artificial genome, a volcano with an almost unpronounceable name, a disaster that blackened Gulf waters-these and other events defined this year in science and technology
Scientific American: Readers' choices: Top 10 Scientific American stories of 2010
Our picks for the top 10 science stories of the year were published this week, but who cares what editors at Scientific American think? Below is a list of the stories and features that visitors to our Web site clicked on the most this year.
The trends are interactive features, technology, health and the human experience. Here is what you clicked on the most, ranked in descending order of popularity
Discover: Galleries / The 100 Top Science Stories of 2010
Every year DISCOVER sorts through the scientific accomplishments of the past 12 months, and assembles a list of the coolest experiments, most brilliant discoveries, and most world-changing events. As you page through the countdown to the #1 science story, we think you'll come to the same conclusion we did: 2010 was quite a year.
New Scientist: 2010 review: The year in technology
From cyberwarfare and ray guns to all sorts of extra dimensions in games and video, the future got an awful lot closer in 2010. Here's New Scientist's pick of the biggest technology stories of the year.
New Scientist: 2010 review: 12 best pictures of the year
Our picture editors bring you the most striking images of the year, taken from our Picture of the Day feed.
New Scientist: The most ground-breaking video games of 2010
Which video games had that little bit extra? New Scientist asks the cognoscenti.
Physics World: Physics World reveals its top 10 breakthroughs for 2010
Dec 20, 2010
It was a tough decision, given all the fantastic physics done in 2010. But we have decided to award the Physics World 2010 Breakthrough of the Year to two international teams of physicists at CERN, who have created new ways of controlling antiatoms of hydrogen.
...
We have also awarded nine runners-up mentions (see below) - with second place going to the first direct detection of the spectrum of an exoplanet and third place to the observation of quantum behaviour in an object big enough to be seen with the naked eye.
Physics World: Our favourite pictures of 2010
These are 15 of our favourite images from 2010 presented in no particular order. Some are funny, some instructive and others are just plain beautiful. We hope you enjoy looking at them
Physics World: Top 10 books for 2010
Physics World reviewed more than 60 popular-physics books in 2010. That's more than most people will read in a lifetime, and, without wanting to sound immodest, we think it's also enough to lend weight to our opinion of the year's best. Reviews editor Margaret Harris picks her top 10 for 2010
Physics World: Best of the blog
From the world's smallest horse being named after Albert Einstein to researchers in Japan dunking superconductors into different alcoholic beverages, the world of physics has had its fair share of quirky stories this year. Michael Banks picks the best from the physicsworld.com blog.
Physics World: Look ahead to 2011
Astronomers have had, quite simply, a fabulous last 12 months. Not only did NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory take off in May to study the Sun - sending a wealth of images and data back to Earth - but the WISE sky surveyor successfully sent back its first data studying the universe in the infrared. Meanwhile, researchers in Japan had good reason to celebrate after the Japanese Space Agency's Hayabusa mission successfully brought small specks from an asteroid back to Earth for the first time. Two other existing missions also produced fabulous stuff: the Planck satellite, launched by the European Space Agency in May 2009, provided its first all-sky map, while ESA's Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer, which launched in March 2009, made its first gravity map of Earth.
Science News: 2010 SCIENCE NEWS OF THE YEAR
By Matt Crenson
January 1st, 2011; Vol.179 #1 (p. 18)
A year ago, most geneticists had all but dismissed the notion that humans and Neandertals interbred. But with the cataloging of the full Neandertal genome, announced in May, we now know that people of European and Asian descent really have inherited a small percentage of their DNA from a rival species that went extinct about 30,000 years ago.
That’s not all we now know that we didn’t know way back in the first decade of the 21st century. Then, it was still an open question whether NASA’s Kepler mission would be able to fulfill its goal of detecting Earthlike planets orbiting distant stars. Now Kepler has collected evidence for hundreds of extrasolar planets. And another planet search has found hints of an object that appears to orbit the star Gliese 581 at just the right distance to support life.
This year’s scientific progress hasn’t been limited to the long ago and far away. Last January 1, nobody really understood how cats drink. Now high-speed imaging has revealed that lapping up a saucer of milk is a sophisticated trick of fluid dynamics that involves pulling a column of liquid off the surface and then snapping it up before it splashes back down.
That’s not all, of course. The number of people who have had their full genetic complement cataloged has grown from a handful to hundreds, providing insights into human diversity and disease. New species have been discovered, and others found to be threatened by global warming and other ills. Natural disasters like the Haiti earthquake, and man-made ones like the Gulf oil spill, have challenged and expanded scientists’ understanding of how the Earth works.
Above originally posted as a comment on Daily Kos. Yes, it was a long comment.