Top 10 news of 2023 chosen by scientists
The Guardian, a major British newspaper, has compiled the top news of 2023 from 10 scientists, including insights into human ancestry, new discoveries on the moon, and advances in AI.
The 10 biggest science stories of 2023 – chosen by scientists | Science | The Guardian
◆01: India's lunar lander reaches the far side of the moon
While major powers were flying and crashing rockets one after another, India's Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed on the moon's south pole in August 2023, something no one had ever done before. .
India's Chandrayaan 3 successfully landed on the moon, becoming the first in the world to land on the moon's south pole - GIGAZINE
According to Hayley Gomez, an astrophysicist at Cardiff University in the UK, there are other notable features of Chandrayaan 3. It was achieved by landing on the moon with an unprecedentedly low budget of 75 million dollars (about 10.6 billion yen) for a lunar exploration project.
Two weeks after landing, Chandrayaan 3 went into sleep mode and never woke up, but it did a lot of work, including detecting sulfur on the lunar surface and confirming that the lunar soil is a good insulator. We faithfully carried out our mission.
◆02: Emergence of SF-like AI
It is often only in hindsight that we realize that a moment was a technological turning point, but 2023 will be the rare year in which we can say with confidence that AI has changed the world, says a computer scientist at the University of Oxford. Michael Wooldridge points out.
Released at the end of 2022, ChatGPT exploded into popularity in 2023, captivating users with its high accuracy and wide range of knowledge. ChatGPT's success has also meant that the large companies that dominated the IT industry have been eclipsed by companies with hundreds of employees, which has led to increased competition in the generative AI market that ChatGPT has ignited. making it even more intense.
Wooldridge believes that the reason ChatGPT has made such a huge leap forward is its accessibility, allowing anyone with a browser to converse with the most sophisticated AI on earth.
Wooldridge said of ChatGPT, ``It looks like something you'd see in a movie, and it's much more sophisticated than the computers in the science fiction show Star Trek.''We've been using AI for a long time without even realizing it,'' Wooldridge said. , we finally have an AI that looks like AI. This is the beginning of something really big.'
◆03: Appearance of girls who do advanced mathematics
In March 2023, Ne Kiya Jackson (left) and Calcia Johnson (right), teenagers living in New Orleans, USA, demonstrated the Pythagorean theorem using trigonometry at an American Mathematical Association convention. Presented a new mathematical proof.
In ``The Pythagorean Proposition,'' written in 1940, mathematician Elisha Loomis explains that ``proof by trigonometry is impossible.'' However, Jackson and his colleagues surprised mathematicians by devising an original proof called the ``waffle cone proof'' that used the law of sine and an infinite geometric series.
Nira Chamberlain, president of the British Mathematical Society, praised the achievements of the two students, saying, ``Catherine Barbalsingh, a British government educator, said, ``Physics A includes difficult mathematics, so it is unlikely that girls will choose physics.'' 'However, Ms. Jackson and Ms. Johnson have eloquently demonstrated the opposite.'
◆04: Insights into humans who migrated from Africa
It is well known that humans originated in Africa, but much of the research has relied on ancient fossils. However, in October 2023, a research team led by Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania in the United States found that Neanderthal DNA, which is present in small amounts in the genes of modern Africans, was found to be homologous somewhere on the Eurasian continent 250,000 years ago. -It has been revealed that it is part of the Sapiens lineage.
by Rowan Millar
Adam Rutherford, a lecturer in genetics at University College London, said: 'This may seem like a small discovery, but by looking at people and regions that have not been covered much, we are 'We have shown that you can discover a lot about your own origins.'
◆05: It was the hottest year
2023 is certain to be the hottest year on record due to a combination of weather conditions that raise global temperatures.
Scientists say ``2023 will almost certainly be the hottest year on record,'' and 2024 could be even hotter - GIGAZINE
However, the news is not all gloomy. Hannah Cloke, a hydrology researcher at the University of Reading, said the UK is producing more green energy than ever before, and that AI forecasting is making human weather forecasters more efficient. It has become possible to do work that even 1 million people could not do, and it has become possible to analyze weather and climate data at an unprecedented speed. NASA's SWOT satellite also helps us predict future disasters by measuring where all the water on Earth is.
Citing the boiled frog theory, Croke said: ``Humans think they are smarter than frogs, but they are actually boiled frogs, the cause of global warming, and the ones who are conducting grand experiments on Earth.'' You will only be able to save yourself if you realize that you are a psychopath.'
◆06: New Crispr therapy for sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia
Sickle cell disease is a genetic abnormality that causes symptoms such as anemia due to malformation of red blood cells.Beta-thalassemia is a genetic disease caused by abnormalities in the amino acid chains that make up hemoglobin.
by
Anne Phoenix, a psychosocial scientist at University College London's Institute of Education, said both of these conditions affect people who suffer from racial inequalities, particularly black people and those with Middle Eastern and African roots. It is said that it is a disease that is common in people who are suffering from cancer.
In November 2023, the British government approved the Crispr-Cas9 genome editing technology called ``Casgevy'' used to treat these diseases. Speaking about the UK being the first in the world to approve a new treatment for sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia, Mr Phoenix said: 'The UK is a pioneer in biotech treatments for sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia. It's a pleasure,' he commented.
◆07: Ugobi, a breakthrough treatment for obesity
Around the world, 735 million people are suffering from hunger, while 650 million adults are obese or have problems with overconsumption of calories. Already, more people die from being overweight than from starvation. I am.
Meanwhile, the GLP-1 receptor agonist ` `Wegovy' ', which was originally a diabetes treatment, was approved as an obesity treatment in 2023.
According to Ijeoma F. Uchegbu, a pharmaceutical researcher at University College London, a two-year clinical trial of Ugobi on 304 people found that participants lost 15% of their body weight. He said. A large three-year study of heart patients also found that Ugobi reduced the risk of stroke and heart attack.
◆08: Superconductor claims face resistance
Research on superconductors that conduct electricity without resistance has often
How did the room-temperature, normal-pressure superconductor ``LK-99'' cause a whirlwind of excitement online? -GIGAZINE
by Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge
Although laboratories around the world have attempted to reproduce the research results, no major research institution has succeeded in reproducing room-temperature, normal-pressure superconductors, so there is no sufficient evidence for signs of room-temperature superconductivity. The majority view is that there was no such thing.
Saiful Islam, a materials scientist at the University of Oxford, said: 'The moral of this story is that careful material characterization is essential before jumping to sweeping conclusions, and that scientific peer review can be constructive and thrilling. LK-99 has not been the fabled holy grail that scientists seek, but that has not deterred the search for real room temperature superconductors and continues to lead to exciting new It is possible that unexpected avenues for research will open up.'
◆09: Bird decline related to herbicides and insecticides
Joanna Baniewska, an environmentalist at Brunel University in the UK, cites the rapid decline of wild animals as an environmental disaster in 2023, along with global warming. Despite the pressing issue of animal decline, it receives only one-eighth the coverage of climate disasters.
A particular problem is the decline in wild bird populations in Europe. A research team led by Stanislas Rigal of the University of Saclay in France examined data on 170 bird species from 20,000 locations in 28 countries and found that the cause of their deaths was the expansion of agriculture, which meant increased use of pesticides and fertilizers. It was determined that this was depriving the birds of food and damaging their health.
◆10: Promising research on embryo models using stem cells
According to Robin Lovell-Budge, a stem cell biology researcher at the Francis Crick Institute in the UK, using pluripotent stem cells, a structure resembling an early human embryo after implantation can be created just in a culture dish. A series of studies were announced in June 2023 showing that it is possible to complete the process. These experimental results reveal the remarkable ability of stem cells to differentiate into body tissues and also stimulate debate about the ethical issues involved in this field of research.
'Stem cell-based embryo model research holds the promise of providing a practical and more ethical alternative to conventional embryo research,' Lovell-Badge said. We will be able to learn a lot about how humans can grow properly and what goes wrong in congenital diseases, miscarriage, and assisted reproductive technology, which still has many failures.'
◆Forum now open
A forum related to this article has been set up on the GIGAZINE official Discord server . Anyone can write freely, so please feel free to comment! If you do not have a Discord account, please create one by referring to the article explaining how to create an account!
• Discord | 'What do you think will be the biggest scientific news of 2023?' | GIGAZINE
https://discord.com/channels/1037961069903216680/1189142118095126608
Related Posts:
in Science, Posted by log1l_ks