The end of the year is always propitious to make balances, both personal and other issues. Below we will comment on the most significant results, advances and scientific personalities of the last twelve months, according to the most reputable publications scientists worldwide.
The largest and most expensive telescope in history
The commissioning of the james webb space telescope It is among the greatest scientific-technical advances of this year. After numerous setbacks, 20 years of development, a cost of 10 billion dollars, 344 technical steps and a 1.5 million kilometer journey into space, the James Webb finally opened its “golden eye” on July 11. and allowed us to observe our universe as never before possible.
Within days of going live, researchers began discovering thousands of new galaxies, more distant and older than any previously documented. The JWST, for its acronym in English, is the result of joint work between NASA and the European and Canadian space agencies, and is capable of capturing light and infrared rays emitted by the first stars 13 billion years ago, what supposes a trip in the history of the cosmos.
The DART mission, scientific achievement or Hollywood argument?
Ever since an asteroid impact was known to change the course of life on Earth, the fear of it happening again has occupied some of the brightest minds on the planet. At the same time, it has become the plot of films that include the popular ones Armageddon (1998) and don’t look up (2021).
Well, for the first time, what seemed to be just the fruit of imagination has come true with the DART mission or Double Asteroid Redirection Test, which successfully changed the trajectory of the Dimorphos asteroid when a NASA spacecraft it crashedintentionally, against the space rock on September 26.
Of course, on this occasion the Earth was not in danger and the objective was to permanently vary the time that this asteroid took to travel its orbit. However, the foregoing served to make Bill Nelson, NASA administrator, affirm that “this is a decisive moment for planetary defense and for all humanity.”
perennial rice
Although the risk of an asteroid wiping out humanity can send shivers down the spine, hunger is a much closer problem. In fact, when you finish reading this article, approximately more than 60 people will have died from this cause, because every four seconds passes away a human being due to the impossibility of accessing food. Additionally, 345 million people suffer from acute hunger in the world, a figure that has doubled since 2019.
That is why it is so important that a group of scientists in the Chinese province of Yunnan have achieved, after twenty years of work, a variety of perennial rice, that is, the one that does not have to be sown every year. This result was made possible by the use of modern genetic hybridization techniques, thanks to which the researchers were able to cross a variety of African wild rice with an Asian “domesticated” annual rice, obtaining high yields, with 60% less manual labor. work, fertilizers, seeds… all of which significantly lowers costs. This variety is not only more profitable, but also helps to replenish the quality of the soil.
DNA two million years old
The discovery of a two million year old DNA sample in the northernmost region of Greenland it sparked a scientific revolution. The researchers reported that they had detected DNA fragments from mastodons, reindeer, hares, lemmings, geese…; plants like poplars, birch and thuja; as well as bacteria and fungi. “The mastodon was a big surprise…”, he declared Eske Willerslev, director of the Lundbeck Foundation’s Center for Geogenetics and responsible for the study, published in the journal Nature.
All of the above allows drawing a surprising landscape of Greenland at a time when the climate was very similar to what we expect to witness in a few years due to global warming, he added. Additionally, this discovery demonstrated that DNA is capable of surviving, under favorable conditions, much longer than scientists believed, which opens up unsuspected possibilities.
Three extraordinary medical achievements:
Vaccines against RSV
This year the results of two clinical trials for vaccines against Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) were published. This virus is responsible for most cases of bronchitis; It is an acute infection of the lower respiratory tract in children under 24 months of age that affects 11 out of 100 children. The RSV is, in addition, together with the virus of the COVID-19 and that of Influenza, part of what is known as “triple threat” or “triplete”, which this winter has put in tension again the health systems of developed countries such as the United States, for putting the lives of children and people over 60 years of age at risk. One of the vaccine candidateswhich belongs to the pharmaceutical company GSK, has shown a 94.1% reduction in severe RSV disease in older adults. On the other hand, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer advertisement that a large international study found that vaccinating expectant mothers was nearly 82% effective in preventing severe RSV cases in the first 90 days of their babies’ lives, when they are most vulnerable. This could prevent millions of deaths in the world due to the fact that this virus it’s responsible for 1 in 50 deaths in children from 0 to 60 months and for 1 in 28 deaths in infants from 28 days to 6 months of age in developed countries.
The cause of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) opens doors for its treatment
Another impressive scientific achievement occurred in the field of neurology when the results of an epidemiological study, carried out over 20 years, were combined with information from more than 10 million military personnel, 955 of them with Multiple Sclerosis. The study found that the risk of developing the disease was much higher in those people who had suffered an active infection with the Epstein Barr virus (responsible for infectious mononucleosis or “kissing disease”). The same was complemented by researchers from Stanford University, who have found that at least between 20% and 25% of patients with Multiple Sclerosis have antibodies that simultaneously recognize a protein from the virus and a protein that is part of the cells. brain, and is the cause of the disease.
The Multiple sclerosis It is a potentially disabling condition that affects 2.5 million people in the world, being the second cause of disability after automobile accidents. This discovery opens the door to promising treatment options such as the Epstein Barr virus vaccine, which could virtually prevent MS, something extraordinary.
Xenotransplants, living with the heart of a genetically modified pig
One of the most influential personalities for the magazine Nature this year it is Dr. Mohammad Mohiuddin. His contribution consists of co-directing the first transplant to a patient with the heart of a genetically modified pig. Total, were introduced 10 different modifications, to avoid graft rejection by the human immune system. The patient survived seven weeks after the operation, until complications began to appear that ended his life. However, the success of the operation is an impressive achievement, since only in 2020 were made 122,341 transplants and the demand far exceeds the availability of human organs. Although this issue opens up an interesting debate with animal organizations, there is no doubt that it could change —and save— the lives of millions of people.
All these wonderful achievements are the result of the hard work of thousands of scientists who, for years, have worked hard to solve humanity’s problems. Approaching them allows us to understand how far the human mind can go and lament all the talent and lives lost due to famine, war and disease.
