For our solstice event I tried to put together a list of this year’s biggest scientific achievements.  They can likely all be looked up with a bit of searching and each one is worthy of a celebration in their own right.  But mostly I want to say; we have come a long way this year.  And we have a long way to go.

I tried to include science and technology in this list, but really anything world-scale (non-politics or natural disaster) is worthy of celebrating.

• Rosetta mission lands on a comet

 

• using young blood to fight old age (rats)

 

• kinghorn human sequencing machines (Sydney relevant)

• 100,000 genomes project

 

• the world's oldest cave art @ 40,000 years old

 

• tesla battery//released their patents on their electric engines for use by anyone.

 

• Virtual reality (cardboard) 

 

• Astronauts growing their own food 

 

• Self driving cars

 

• cubesats

 

• Lab grown kidneys successfully implanted into animals 

 

• synthetic DNA

• Chicken with a reptile face 

 

• nearly an altzeimers cure (ultrasound techniques)

 

• DAWN orbits Ceres

 

• Deepdreaming machine learning (and twitch-deepdream)

• Prosthetic limbs that transmit feeling back to the user 

• Autonomous rocket landing pointy end up 

• Lightsail project 

• Ion space travel engine 

• Anti - aging virus injected into the patient 0

• Super black substance made 

• Q-carbon 

• High temperature superconductor (-70c)

• 23&me were allowed to open back up

• Enchroma colourblindness adjusting glasses

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from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015

April 29 – The World Health Organization (WHO) declares that rubella has been eradicated from the Americas.

July 14 - NASA's New Horizons spacecraft performs a close flyby of Pluto, becoming the first spacecraft in history to visit the distant world.

September 10 – Scientists announce the discovery of Homo naledi, a previously unknown species of early human in South Africa.

September 28 – NASA announces that liquid water has been found on Mars.

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Recommendations from the slack:

china makes a genetically modified micropig and sells it: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/03/micropig-animal-rights-genetics-china-pets-outrage

psyc studies can’t be reproduced: http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/27/9216565/psychology-studies-reproducability-issues

zoom contact lenses

http://mic.com/articles/118670/this-painless-eye-implant-could-give-you-superhuman-vision#.4S5ihAKNE

room temperature synthetic diamonds

http://phys.org/news/2015-11-phase-carbon-diamond-room-temperature.html 

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Notable deaths

terry pratchett passed away

malcolm fraser

John Forbes Nash Jr

Oliver Sacks

Christopher lee

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Nobel medals this year

Chemistry – Paul L. Modrich; Aziz Sancar and Tomas Lindahl ("for mechanistic studies of DNA repair")

Economics – Angus Deaton ("for his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare")

Literature – Svetlana Alexievich ("for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time" )

Peace – Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet ("for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011")

Physics – Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald ("for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass")

Physiology or Medicine – William C Campbell, Satoshi Ōmura ("for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites") and Tu Youyou ("for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria"[116])

 

Other:

The dress 

Ebola outbreak

Polio came back 

(also this year) - upcoming spaceX return flight on the 19th dec

runner up: vat meat is almost ready.

runner up: soylent got a lot better this year

runner up: quantum computing having progressive developments but nothing specific

 

Things that happened 100 years ago (from wikipedia):

• March 19 – Pluto is photographed for the first time
• September 11 – The Pennsylvania Railroad begins electrified commuter rail service between Paoli and Philadelphia, using overhead AC trolley wires for power. This type of system is later used in long-distance passenger trains between New York City, Washington, D.C., and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
• November 25 – Einstein's theory of general relativity is formulated.
• Alfred Wegener publishes his theory of Pangaea.

• Thomas Huckle Weller, American virologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2008)
• Charles Townes, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2015)
• August 27 – Norman F. Ramsey, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2011)
• Clifford Shull, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2001)
• November 19 – Earl Wilbur Sutherland Jr., American physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1974)
• Henry Taube, Canadian-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2005)

• Paul Ehrlich, German scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1854)
• December 19 – Alois Alzheimer, German psychiatrist and neuropathologist (b. 1864)

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Meta - This list was compiled for Sydney’s Solstice event; I figured I would share this because it’s pretty neat.

Time to compose: 3-4hrs

With comments from the IRC and slack

To see more of my posts visit my Table of contents

As usual; any suggestions welcome below.