2011 Recap: Biggest Scientific Breakthroughs

[Greg Bernhardt]

Here is a brief recap in case you missed a few of these! Which is your favorite? Are they missing some?
http://io9.com/5871725/biggest-scientific-breakthroughs-of-2011

 

[Drakkith]

Huh, I didn't know that Neanderthals bred with us, nor did I know about the other species that we had back then!

 

[lisab]

Huh, I didn't know that Neanderthals bred with us...

I see evidence of it daily.

 

[Moonbear]

I see evidence of it daily.

You owe me a new keyboard...and a drink refill!

 

[Drakkith]

I see evidence of it daily.

I am a man! Not a monster! Is that a hump on my back?

 

[ThomasT]

Here is a brief recap in case you missed a few of these! Which is your favorite? Are they missing some?
http://io9.com/5871725/biggest-scientific-breakthroughs-of-2011

I found the one about pictures from mental/brain processes to be the most astonishing/intriguing. I mean, is it actually possible that we might be able to see what people are thinking or perceiving? It boggles my (admittedly easily boggled) mind.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

They missed a pretty big one in the finding that treating pre-symptomatic HIV-infected people with antiretroviral drugs reduces their risk of transmitting the virus by 96% (M. S. Cohen et al., 2011 Prevention of HIV-1 Infection with Early Antiretroviral Therapy. N. Engl. J. Med. 365: 493-505 doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1105243). The journal Science described this finding as their Breakthrough of the Year.

In the field I work in, molecular biophysics, some of the most exciting discoveries were: the first crystal structure of the complex between a G-protein coupled receptor and its G-protein (http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature10361 ) which provides fundamental insights into an important family of proteins involved in cell signalling; and the development of fluorescent voltage-sensitive proteins that can detect action potentials in neurons (http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.1782 ), which promises to enable some very exciting new experiments in neurobiology.

 

[rhody]

They missed this one, IMHO at least: Color Coded surgery. Identifies cancer cells during surgery, ensuring more of them are removed. Very cool.

Rhody...

 

[Ryan_m_b]

How about the first synthetic trachea? An excellent piece of work showing the potential of regenerative medicine in future medicine.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

That one about postponing disease in rats is a step backward if you ask me.

 

[wuliheron]

Direct evidence that the HUP needs contextual revision.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/45535

 

[rhody]

Direct evidence that the HUP needs contextual revision.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/45535

I read the article, could you put it into layman's terms, with an analogy that I can wrap my mind around.

Jonathan Dowling, a theoretical physicist at Louisiana State University in the US, says that the latest work could also help in the search for gravitational waves. Researchers hope to register gravitational waves' distortion of space time by measuring the difference in path length experienced by laser beams traveling in the two orthogonal pipes of an interferometer. Dowling says that if the American LIGO detector could operate with a sensitivity that scales as 1/N3/2 rather than as 1/N1/2 then either its sensitivity could be greatly increased or its laser power enormously reduced, which would avoid potential heating and deformation of the facilities' optics. "This opens up a whole new ball game in nonlinear interferometry," he adds.

However, Barry Sanders, a quantum physicist at the University of Calgary in Canada, urges caution. "The experiment demonstrates that the Heisenberg limit can be beaten in the real world," he says. "But practical applications are not likely in the near future because of the technical challenges that need to be overcome, especially noise. We are still exploring the basic physics of using quantum resources for precise measurements."

Rhody...