Published 2014-12-28 08:00
The spacecraft Rosetta’s close encounter with a comet comes in first place according to the journal Science. On the list are also cooperating mini robots, manipulated memories and 40,000 year old cave paintings.
The spacecraft Rosetta’s close encounter with a comet comes in first place according to the journal Science. On the list are also cooperating mini robots, manipulated memories and 40,000 year old cave paintings.
Meeting with a comet a breakthrough
The lander Philae survived only a few days on surface, but the mother ship Rosetta comet follow throughout the next år.Årets biggest scientific breakthrough was the European space probe Rosetta.
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The Rosetta came to comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August after more than ten years in space, and is now the first probe ever in orbit around a comet. In November sent a lander Philae down to the very core.
The landing was not completely as planned, and Philae ended up in a place that was too shady for the solar panels could supply the instruments on board with current.
But during his first days on the comet, before the batteries discharged, it could collect valuable data for researchers.
Most of the investigations made by the mother ship Rosetta next year follow the comet as it approaches the sun and get a full-blown tail. 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko has brought many surprises already, and Rosetta will learn much more about comets, solar system and our own origins.
Robotar who collaborate without control
Simple little robots that follow simple rules can create things together without human intervention.
Several research groups during the year featured robots can cooperate and work together to create something collectively.
Some robots inspired by termites building a stack. Each one works independently of the others, but by following simple rules and interpret your surroundings, they can together construct walls, stairs and buildings. The robots will pick building blocks, climbing over what is already built and puts his block where it seems appropriate until construction is complete.
In another study, thousands of missiles on three legs, big crown coins, forming letters or stars , rectangles, and other shapes by knowing where the others are.
Researchers have also received small helicopters to fly in formation without colliding, and missile boats to make group maneuvers.
In the future, can build robots used during floods and other disasters, and also to build research stations on the seabed or outpost on Mars.
Fåglar are surviving dinosaurs
The birds’ family tree and how quickly they developed when other dinosaurs died out have been identified in a large international research cooperation.
For 65 million years ago, just after the other dinosaurs had died out, exploding birds’ evolution.
In a very short time they went from three to 30 lineages, corresponding to the 30 groups of birds we have today.
It shows a collaboration between researchers across the world, including at Uppsala University.
For four years, they have analyzed the genome of various contemporary bird species and fossils of dinosaurs and extinct birds and managed to create a family tree.
The project has been possible thanks to technological advances, which researchers now have machines analyzing DNA and additionally supercomputers and new computational algorithms that can compare and find the similarities and differences in the genome.
The results show that some properties, like being able to mimic other animal sounds, arose several times during evolution, and that external similarity does not necessarily mean close relationship.
Ett expanded genetic alphabet has been created
Researchers have for the first time created additional parts to the genetic code in living E. coli bacteria.
The genetic code of all living beings on earth is made up of the same four letters: the nucleotides A, G, C and T. A is always paired with T, and C always with G.
Now researchers have added a new pair of letters to the alphabet: X and Y, in living E. coli bacteria. The bacteria is found only in a culture at a lab in Southern California, and can not bring the new letters to future generations if they can hold from there.
X and Y do nothing for the bacteria, but in the future it may be possible to use them to create new proteins composed of amino acids other than the 20 item consists of.
Målningar in the cave rewrites history
40 000 years old paintings in an Indonesian cave shows that art did not occur in Europe.
Pictures on the wall of a cave on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia is four times older than scientists previously thought. The paintings were discovered decades ago, but this year the researchers were able to date radioactive uranium in small stalactites growing on the pictures and show that they were made for between 35,000 and 40,000 years ago.
They are thus at least as old as the oldest cave paintings found in Europe.
Most of the pictures in the cave imagine happening – people have held up his hand against the wall and blown out the color around it – but there is also a painting of a pig and an animal called pig deer.
The paintings are writing about our history. Previously, many researchers have argued that the figurative art first emerged in Europe.
One possible explanation for the ancient paintings in Indonesia is that the Asians and Europeans learned to paint at the same time.
But it is likely that our ancestors could already make art when they left Africa 60,000 years ago.
Ungt blood rejuvenates old mice
Injections of blood from younger animals counteracts multiple signs of aging in old mice.
Blood from young mice appears to act as a rejuvenation of older animals. The blood gives old mice at an age equivalent to 70 years in humans, stronger and muscular endurance, healthier hearts and growth of new neurons in the brain, according to several studies published during the year.
The mice also seems to get better spatial memory and greater ability to distinguish different odors. Young mice avoid the smell of mint, while older animals do not. But when the old mice treated with the young blood scientists saw that even they avoided minty smell.
Above all it is a factor in the blood, GDF11, which seems to be rejuvenating.
The factor GDF11 is Also with us. Now, clinical trials have been initiated in which patients with Alzheimer’s disease Injections of blood plasma from young.
If the good, rejuvenating effect also works in humans, this could be a step towards a medicine in combination with other treatments arrests or slow the disease.
Väldigt small satellites will emerge
Småsatelliter, which are cheap and easy to manufacture and launch, is now used for real research.
Universities around the world have long allowed students to build Cubesats, satellites no larger than one cubic decimeter.
Now it becomes clear how useful småsatelliterna can be even for researchers. This year, more than 75 Cubesats postponed.
They cost only a fraction of the price of regular satellites and are also easy to get into orbit – they can comply with onboard rockets shooting up larger vehicles or be discharged directly from the International Space Station. The technology will fit on them becomes increasingly sophisticated, and they can also make measurements along with other småsatelliter.
Nytt hope of cure for diabetics
The first attempts to transform stem cells into insulin-producing beta cells could open the way for the treatment of type 1 diabetes.
The so-called beta cells in the pancreas produce insulin.
In diabetes type 1 attack the cells of the body own immune system and degrades or fails.
For more than ten years, scientists around the world attempted to obtain human stem cells to be transformed into beta cells to get an opportunity to treat and even cure the disease. In 2014, managed two groups for the first time, using different methods and from different types of stem cells.
The process takes time. It also requires more research to get the pancreas to receive the new beta cells without alienating them, and to protect cells against the attacks from the immune system that provided the patient is diabetic.
But even now gives the engineered beta cells, researchers unprecedented opportunities to study diabetes in the lab, and for example, see if there is a difference between beta cells made from stem cells from healthy individuals and from patients with diabetes.
Datachip as mimics the brain
The first data chip that works more like biological systems hit the market in years.
Once we understand the brain better, we can also build better computers. This year launched several computer companies so-called neuromorphic chip that try to mimic how biological systems work.
Computers have been constructed in the same way since the 1940s, with different parts: a memory, a controller and a processor. The architecture works well for logical calculations but is worse on tasks is to take care of large amounts of data, like being able to see or feel.
The neuromorphic chip works more like the brain, where each neuron can communicate with thousands of others, and many different types of information are processed simultaneously. Work becomes effective because different parts of the brain are specialized in different things.
A neuromorfiskt chip that came on the market this year includes 5.4 billion transistors paired with 256 million connections, which of course is much, much smaller than the brain’s one hundred billion nerve cells and many times more synapses.
Manipulera memories with laser light
Researchers use lasers to transform negative to positive memories in the brain of mice.
Last year, scientists managed to erase memories in mice and create new ones using the so-called optogenetics: laser light affects individual neurons in the brain.
This year, they came a step further by To replace the contents of a memory of something negative into something positive.
A male mouse who remembered that he had received an electric shock in the foot at a particular place in the cage learned to avoid it.
But when the researchers activated brain cells which were linked to the memory of the electric shock when the mouse got to meet two females became instead a pleasurable memory. After returning the mouse to place the cage as often as he could.
It also acted in the opposite direction.
A male mouse who remembered a meeting with a female could get it replaced with a memory which attracted equally unpleasant feelings that an electrical shock.
The results show that our memories may not be as reliable and moreover can be influenced. But above all they teach us much more about how the brain works.
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