From record-beating scientific discoveries to an elephant baby boom, 2020 was about much more than just the global pandemic
But there
have been bright points in this annus horribilis.
While many of us saved lives by hunkering down at home watching
Netflix, a communal act of selflessness that shouldn't be soon
forgotten, progress was made in science, the environment, and even
politics – Biden won! We can buy lab-grown meat! British beavers built a
dam for the first time in 400 years!
Here's our rundown of the best news to come out of 2020.
The world's first mRNA vaccine was made in less than a year
The
world's medical and pharma scientists have never made a vaccine as
quickly as it did this year – and we got three out of the bargain, with
more to come. But the BioNTech and Moderna vaccines will not only let us
emerge from lockdown, they're also the first using messenger RNA,
proving that vaccine technology works. That not only opens the door for
its use against existing diseases but also means we could more quickly
make vaccines to fight future pandemics – because we may have to do this
all over gain someday. Read more at WIRED.
Lab-grown meat on sale for first time
The
era of slaughter for protein could be coming to an end, with the
Singapore Food Agency approving for the first time the sale of lab-grown
chicken. Made by American company Eat Just, the cells for the "chicken
bites" are harvested from live animals and grown in a bioreactor. Though
foetal bovine serum is still used in the process, the company plans to
switch to a plant-based growing medium for its next production line.
Read more at The Guardian
DeepMind solves 50-year-old protein folding problem
DeepMind's
AI has accurately predicted protein shapes from their sequences alone, a
tough task that normally requires lengthy, expensive lab experiments.
While the AI, known as AlphaFold, couldn't unpick all protein
structures, it has helped answer questions that have long challenged
researchers – and could herald major changes in medical research. Read
more at Nature
Nuclear fusion could give us unlimited clean energy
Researchers
are building a star on Earth in an attempt to create nuclear power
without the radioactive waste. The Joint European Torus (JET) will begin
work next year, smashing together hydrogen atoms to generate energy and
heat, which could eventually be harvested to generate electricity. Read
more at WIRED
Kiwis gift Remarkables land to nation
Dill
and Jillian Jardine could have sold their 900 hectares along the shore
of Lake Wakatipu in New Zealand's Remarkables mountain range to
developers. After all, the region is popular among the remarkably
wealthy, including PayPal and Palantir founder Peter Thiel. Instead, the
farming couple donated it to a local trust as a park for the enjoyment
of everyone, not just billionaires. Read more at The Guardian
Beavers build first dam in four centuries
The
National Trust released beavers into the wild in January, after the
buck-toothed creatures went extinct in England four-hundred years ago.
Efforts to return the animals have found success with beavers in
Scotland relocated to the Holnicote Estate in Exmoor, where they've
settled in well enough to chew up a few trees and assemble a "modest
but… incredibly special" dam, according to the Trust. Read more at the BBC
Spider rediscovered in Surrey
Mike
Waite of the Surrey Wildlife Trust spent two years in the dark tramping
around a Ministry of Defence site, searching for a specific species of
spider not seen in the UK since 1999. But in October, he spotted it: a
great fox-spider. "It's a gorgeous spider, if you're into that kind of
thing," he said. The two-inch creature doesn't build a web, instead
chasing beetles and smaller arachnids in order to immobilise them with
venom that liquefies their organs. How very 2020. Read more at The Guardian
First new coral reef found in 120 years
Scientists
mapping the seafloor north of Australia's Great Barrier Reef made a
massive discovery: a new reef that's taller than the Empire State
Building. It's the first such coral structure to be found in the region
in 120 years, and aided by an underwater robot, the year-long
exploration journey also discovered 30 new species of sea life,
including a 150-foot predator string – yes, that's right – known as a
siphonophore. Read more at the BBC
Pandas have sex after decade-long wait
When
the pandemic hit, Hong Kong's Ocean Park zoo shut to visitors. Several
weeks later, perhaps enjoying their new-found privacy, pandas Ying Ying
and Le Le did something zookeepers had been trying to inspire for ten
long years: they had sex. The mating doesn't appear to have led to a
pregnancy for Ling Ling, but getting it on after ten years of ignoring
each other is encouraging to those in stale long-term relationships
everywhere. Read more at VICE
There's a baby boom – for elephants
The
Amboseli National Park in Kenya reported more than 170 calves by the
end of summer, versus 113 in all of 2018 – including two sets of twins.
The pachyderm pregnancy peak followed heavy rain the previous year,
which means better grazing and more successful births. Alongside the
elephantine baby boom, Kenya has said that the rate of poaching has
fallen to just seven – down from 80 in 2018 – with numbers of the
animals rebounding from 16,000 in 1989 to more than 34,000. Read more at
NPR
Painting turbine blades slashes bird deaths
The
shift to wind power is good news for the planet, but bad news for birds
that fly into the blades of turbines at onshore wind farms. Researchers
at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research have found a potential
solution: painting one of the three rotor blades black to make them
easier to see. And it worked, reducing bird strikes by 70 per cent – not
bad for a lick of paint. Read more at the BBC
UK record coal-free run tops 67 days
67
days, 22 hours and 55 minutes – it's the longest the UK has gone
without coal-generated power since the industrial revolution. The record
run came to an end mid-June only because a north Yorkshire power
station fired up a coal unit for maintenance. The rest of the energy mix
during the two-plus months was dominated by renewable energy at 36 per
cent, followed by gas at 33 per cent and nuclear at 21 per cent. Read
more at The Independent
Enzyme eats through plastics
Plastic
waste is choking the planet, but researchers at the University of
Toulouse: have found a mutant bacterial enzyme that will happily chew
through it all, breaking it down for easy recycling into new plastic
materials. The enzyme was originally discovered in a compost heap of
leaves, though it needed some tweaking to optimise its ability to break
down plastic. The mutated version managed to degrade a tonne of waste
plastic in ten hours. Read more in The Guardian
SpaceX's first launch with humans
Elon
Musk's SpaceX started the commercial space flight era by successfully
launching a Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Crew Dragon capsule and two
Nasa astronauts, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, to the International Space
Station (ISS). The Falcon 9 rocket has previously ferried cargo to
orbit, but the trip marks the first private space launch with humans
aboard – and the beginning of private space flight, including tourism.
Read more at WIRED
Porn starts to consider ethics
Pornhub removed two-thirds of the videos on its site – some ten million clips – after an investigation by the New York Times
revealed some of the user-uploaded clips featured children and other
abuse, sparking Visa and Mastercard to halt processing payments. From
now on, the site will only permit verified users to upload videos,
perhaps finally kickstarting an era of ethics in mainstream porn sites.
Read more at Motherboard
UK gets its first tech union
United
Tech and Allied Workers set up a branch in the UK amid wider activism
in the sector in the US, with walkouts at Facebook, Google and Amazon.
The aim is to give workers more power to hold their employers to account
without having to quit and find another job – not easy during a
pandemic. Read more at WIRED
Art sculpture saves train driver
Public
transport met public art in dramatic, life-saving fashion when a
Rotterdam metro train crashed through buffers at the end of the elevated
line in the Dutch city. The driver's carriage was saved from falling
the 10m to the ground by a public art installation by Maarten Struijs,
propped up by one of two whales' tails. Struijs called the accident
"rather poetic" and he's not wrong: the name of the work is Saved by a
Whale's Tale. Read more in The Times
Kamala Harris becomes first female vice president
The
US has its female vice-president, and she's a woman of colour known to
her step-kids as "Momala". In a year of difficult politics, and amid a
backdrop of racial tension, the US managed to make a major step forward
by electing Kamala Harris as the first female vice-president. Read more
pretty much anywhere, but start with the New York Times
Argentina set to legalise abortion
Abortion
remains illegal across most of South America, but Argentina is set to
become the first large nation and only the fourth on the continent to
allow women the right to choose. It follows the lead of Cuba, Uruguay
and Guyana, though UN research suggests more than six million abortions
still happen in the region each year, the majority of which are unsafe
for women. The bill still needs to be approved by the senate later in
December. Read more at The Guardian
Endurance runner carries disabled friend to top of Mount Olympus
Eleftheria
Tosiou always wanted to scale Mount Olympus, the highest peak in
Greece. The wheelchair-bound student reached the goal with the help of
her friend, long-distance endurance runner Marios Giannakou, who scaled
the 2,917-metre mountain with Tosiou strapped to his back. “I have never
done something more beautiful,” said Giannakou. “I think it has
completed me as a person.” Read more at Reuters
-- by Nicole Kobie, Friday 18 December 2020
