Like all of us, science has had a tough few years. The coronavirus pandemic flooded the news and the most pressing scientific discoveries became political controversies. Outside of the pandemic, there didn’t seem to be much to celebrate — or even think about. But researchers in hundreds of fields continued their life’s work. And now that the cloud that COVID-19 has cast on everyday life is beginning to lift, it’s clear that there have been some pretty amazing scientific discoveries this year.
They have changed our understanding of everything from prehistoric history to our future in space, why humans age, what the brain is capable of and why the toll of climate change is even more severe than currently thought. Read on to learn more about the 10 most amazing scientific discoveries of 2022 so far.
1
30,000-year-old baby woolly mammoth found in Canadian ice
When miners in Canada discovered an animal frozen in permafrost, they quickly called experts. None of them were prepared for what turned out: University of Calgary researchers were stunned when it was discovered that it was an approximately 30,000-year-old female woolly mammoth baby with perfectly preserved toenails, skin, torso and hair – the Am best preserved woolly mammoth ever found in North America.
“It’s as close to meeting a live mammoth as you can get,” the school said in a press release. “It was incredible to think that this was an animal that died so long ago, but here it is, so well preserved that it still has hair – honestly, it was stunning,” said Dr. Dan Shugar, a science professor at the university. He called it “the most exciting scientific thing I’ve ever been involved in.”
2
Ice Age footprints discovered in USA
A study published in August found that scientists had found 88 fossilized adult and child footprints, believed to be 12,000 years old, in shallow Utah riverbeds. It is only the second set of Ice Age human footprints identified in the United States (the first was in 2021).
They suggest that humans occupied the area 7,500 years earlier than previously thought, and that could shake our current understanding of human evolution. “Now that we have that human element, the history of very early humans becomes more real,” David Madsen, an archaeologist at the University of Nevada-Reno, told CNN. “There’s more funding available, there’s more interest in it, there’s going to be more recovery.”
3
We can throw asteroids off course
NASA slammed a spacecraft called DART straight into an asteroid in September. Their goal: to see if such a collision could knock the asteroid out of its orbit, something that could protect Earth from an apocalyptic asteroid impact like the one that wiped out dinosaurs millions of years ago. The $325 million plane – about the size of a vending machine – was aimed at the asteroid Dimorphos, which is about 6.8 million miles from Earth.
It hit the space rock at 14,000 miles per hour and was instantly destroyed. The mission appears to have been successful, knocking Dimorphos out of its previous orbit. “As far as we can tell, our first planetary defense test was a success,” Elena Adams, DART’s mission systems engineer at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL), said after the impact. “I think earthlings should sleep better.
4
Brain cells grown in the lab have learned to play video games
Australian researchers say they grew brain cells in a lab that learned to play the ancient video game Pong. The “mini-brains” they create can perceive and react to their environment. dr Brett Kagan said his team created the first “sentient” brain grown in a lab. “We couldn’t find a better term to describe the device,” he said. “It’s able to take in information from an external source, process it, and then act on it in real-time.”
In the experiment, the researchers grew human brain cells from stem cells and mouse embryos into a mini-brain made up of 800,000 cells. They connected the mini-brain to Pong via electrodes that indicated which side the ball was on and how far it was from the bat. When “watching” the video game, the cells generated electrical activity, the scientists said, giving the cells feedback on whether or not they hit the ball.
The mini-brain learned to play the game in five minutes, the researchers said. It frequently missed the ball, but its connection rate was higher than accidental.
5
Some people who appear to be in a coma may actually be conscious and hear us
It’s called “hidden consciousness,” a state in which the brain responds to the outside world with some understanding, but the body doesn’t respond. Scientific American reported that up to 15 to 20 percent of patients who appear to be in a coma show this type of inner awareness when monitored with technology that can measure brain activity. This changes scientists’ understanding of comas and other unresponsive states.
Studies have found that people whose covert consciousness is caught early have a greater chance of a full, functional recovery. “That’s very big for the field,” one neuroscientist said of the first major study of the phenomenon. “The understanding that when the brain recovers, one in seven people could be conscious and aware, very aware of what is being said about them and that this is true every day in any intensive care unit – it’s gargantuan.”
6
Greenland is disappearing much faster than previously thought
The second largest sheet of ice in the world, also known as Greenland, appears to be disappearing faster than scientists previously thought. Warmer ocean water and rising air temperatures have accelerated the melting of Arctic land. According to a study published in the journal nature geosciencesGreenland loses about 250 billion tons of ice every year.
These losses accelerate over time. Warm air melts the surface of the ice sheet and the runoff is deposited in the oceans. Scientists say this churns up the water, causing heat to rise from the oceans and further warming the water touching the ice. As a result, the glaciers are melting faster. This “could raise sea levels so much that even New York and San Francisco will have to adjust to a new normal.” market observation reported. “
Scientists are particularly concerned about the impact a melting ice sheet could have on some US coastal cities like New York City; Washington, D.C.; San Francisco; and New Orleans. These popular metropolitan areas could become underwater cities if the ice sheets melt enough to raise sea levels significantly.”
7
Found near-Earth asteroids
The European Space Agency says there are more than 30,000 near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) in the solar system. They are space rocks—sometimes huge ones—revolving around the Sun in orbits relatively close to Earth’s orbit. And 1,425 of them have a “non-zero chance” of hitting Earth.
Of the 30,039 NEAs, approximately 10,000 are greater than 460 feet in diameter and 1,000 are greater than 3,280 feet in diameter. The 1,425, which have a “non-zero impact probability,” are being closely watched by astronomers. Possibly reassuring: On average, Earth is hit by a large asteroid every 5,000 years and one asteroid every 1 million years, ending civilization, says NASA.
8th
A billion crabs have mysteriously disappeared from Alaska
In October, CBS News reported that a billion crabs have disappeared from Alaska in the past two years, and experts aren’t sure why. That’s 90% of their population. The drop is so severe that fish and game officials have canceled the upcoming winter crab season for the first time in state history, and the economy is likely to suffer a $200 million damage. What’s more, scientists fear that this could be an ominous sign for the global ecosystem.
Illness is one possible explanation. Climate change is another. NOAA points out that Alaska is the fastest warming state in the US and crabs need cold water to survive. Miranda Westphal, a biologist with Alaska’s Fish and Game Division, said that between 2018 and 2019 the Bering Sea was “extremely warm and the snow crab population huddled in the coolest water they could find,” she said. As the water warms up, their metabolism increases, which spurs them on to eat more. “They probably starved and there wasn’t enough food.”
9
Scientists have successfully transplanted human brain cells into baby rats
In a study published in the journal Nature This October, scientists injected human nerve cells into the brains of rats. They found that these neurons continued to grow, forming connections with their host’s brain cells and controlling their behavior. These cells eventually grew and made up one-sixth of the animals’ brains.
“The ultimate goal of this work is to understand the characteristics of complex diseases like schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder, bipolar disorder,” Paola Arlotta, a Harvard neuroscientist, told NPR. But some scientists are nervous. When is a rat implanted with human cells no longer a rat? And could the process create, swallow, high-performing “super rats”? “It raises the possibility that you’re creating an enhanced rat that has cognitive abilities that are larger than an ordinary rat,” said Julian Savulescu, a bioethicist at the National University of Singapore.
TIED TOGETHER: Scientists discovered a real “death pool” on the seabed. It kills everything that swims in
10
Men age faster than women and are “four years older” by the time they reach 50
Scientists say they’ve found evidence that men age faster than women, and that men are biologically four years older than women by the time they reach 50. This “aging gap” also exists between men and women in their 20s. Researchers in Finland studied 2,240 twins in two age groups: those between 21 and 42 and those between 50 and 76. Using the epigenetic clock, a biochemical test used to measure age, the scientists compared each person’s chronological age to the age The epigenetic clock said, that they are biological.
Using the watches, the researchers found that men were biologically older than women, and the difference increased with calendar age, even when lifestyle was accounted for. The study author said that when comparing male-female twins, the man was about a year older biologically than his sister in his 20s and four years older than his sister in his 50s. “These couples grew up in the same environment and share half of their genes,” she said. “The difference can be explained, for example, by gender-specific genetic factors and the health-promoting effect of the female sex hormone estrogen.”
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