What We Learned in 2018: Science

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/science/what-we-learned-2018.html

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It’s not easy to say that any particular scientific development was the most important in a given year. But if we had to choose some highlights, we’d opt for these unforgettable events and findings.

Read about the year in climate change news here;

Read about the year in medical and health news here;

Read about the busy year in space here.

A scientist’s use of the Crispr technique set off a global firestorm.

He Jiankui’s claim that he had secretly altered the embryos of twin girls in China shocked scientists around the world. If his claims are true, the babies would be the first known embryo-edited children, and many people fear a day when it will be possible to edit genes for traits like intelligence, beauty or athletic ability. For now, scientists fear that the twins could face health risks from unintended consequences of the gene editing. The reaction to Dr. He’s work could also imperil ongoing research that is being conducted with more consideration for medical ethics and safety.

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We learned amazing natural wonders sometimes hide in plain sight.

What we now call New York City once marked the spot where a massive ice sheet reached its end point. Over millions of years, it shaped the area’s landscape in unique ways. From Manhattan’s skyscrapers, you can see the Ice Age on a clear day, as a Times headline writer put it.

We learned sometimes doing nothing is the best thing to do.

It’s simple: 30 percent of the ants do 70 percent of the work. Any more fire ants working at once, and productivity suffers, scientists found. Whether you should apply this lesson in your own workplace is up to you (and your management).

We learned more about the genetic legacy of our early human relatives.

Tens of thousands of years ago, humans interbred with Neanderthals, and anyone of Eurasian ancestry now carries some Neanderthal genes. That interbreeding exposed young Homo sapiens to new viruses related to influenza, herpes and H.I.V., but also may have given humans immunities to these diseases that persist to this day.

We learned that leafy things can be more complicated than they appear.

One team of scientists visualized the threat communication systems within plants that help them fight back when under attack. Others presented the tantalizing suggestion of plant consciousness using anesthetic gas. And in rain forests, some plants’ fruits seem to send careful messages to specific animals, in order to spread their seeds.

We learned genetic genealogy cracks cold cases but poses ethical perils.

Authorities in California announced in April that they had made an arrest in the decades-old Golden State Killer case. Suddenly it became difficult to keep up with all the cold cases being cracked by uploading crime scene DNA evidence to GEDmatch, a genealogy website. The two unlikely genetic entrepreneurs who created the site have become heroes to some, but their unconventional privacy policy is raising concerns. Even if a person has never taken a DNA test, his or her DNA could now be identified on GEDmatch through cousins’s DNA.

We learned there’s no easy solution for stopping poaching and trafficking.

Kingpins of wildlife trafficking keep getting arrested, but endangered species like rhinos, elephants and others continue to dwindle. Networks that trade in illegal wildlife are decentralized and constantly morphing. But law enforcement seldom addresses these criminal enterprises with tactics they use to fight crimes like money-laundering. With China showing signs of a wavering commitment to conservation, such a change in approach may be all the more important.

We learned killer whales face interconnected mortal threats.

The plight of orcas in the Pacific Northwest is illustrative of the dangers they face in parts of the world: dwindling food supplies; human activities like shipping crowding their habitats; and pollution making them sick and leading to miscarriages. Pollution alone could result in killer whale population collapses in some regions. This summer, an orca called J35 put a sad face on this problems as she carried her dead calf for weeks.

We learned famous psychology experiments arrive at different results when repeated.

The results of the Stanford Prison Experiment, the marshmallow test and other studies in the modern psychological canon were all challenged this year. But while the effort to replicate research is a valuable self-corrective in science, there may be reasons to think carefully before disposing of some findings altogether.

We learned many modern cultural treasures may not survive.

Usually we assume plastic lasts forever, and will end up in a landfill, or the oceans. But many important cultural artifacts — spacesuits that went to the moon, the first artificial heart, modern sculptures — are made of plastic. And some are deteriorating as conservators struggle to preserve them for future generations.