The Science Museum of London harbours some of the most important scientific and technological advances in the last centuries. Recently, it also displayed Rex, the first prototype of a bionic man, worth over a million euros and the cutting-edge of prosthetics and artificial organs -despite missing some core like the brain. However, will Rex figure in the ranking of the top ten scientific discoveries of the last decade?
Some candidates to take into consideration could be:
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| Mars' surface |
- The discovery of water on Mars: the topography of the Martian surface leaded scientists to think that in the past Mars had large amounts of liquid water. However, in June 2008, the Phoenix Mars Lander went further and found ice under a thin layer of dust. The researchers do not rule out that there is still a small amount of water under the ice caps, which would increase the chances of finding microscopic life.
- Deciphering the Human Genome: The Human Genome Project, one of the most ambitious research in the history of science, led by Craig Venter and Francis Collins, gave birth to the first draft of the human genome in 2003. In these ten years, scientists have sequenced the genomes of many other species and have greatly accelerated the process. In addition to revolutionizing biology, DNA sequencing is already being used for diagnostic purposes and will open the door to numerous advances in the coming years, especially in the field of personalized medicine.
- The ENCODE project: linked to the Human Genome Project, an international team of 442 scientists, found that 80% of the DNA chain -considered so far "junk DNA"- contains important instructions for life and acts as a large control panel with millions of switches that regulate the activity of our genes. These fragments could yield new information about heart disease, multiple sclerosis or Crohn's disease.
- The Higgs boson: in March 2013, scientists at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) presented new results confirming that the tiny particle discovered in July 2012 is the Higgs boson, but it remains to determine what subtype it is. Confirmation of the existence of the Higgs boson within the Standard Model of particle physics would mean to have understood the mechanism by which particles acquire mass.
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| Higgs boson |
- The age of the universe: in March 2010, an international team of researchers estimated the age of the universe at 13.75 billion years, thanks to the measurements taken by NASA's Hubble telescope and the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). The American agency has also also disclosed the proportion of ingredients of the universe: a 5% is ordinary matter, 23% accounts for dark matter and 72% is dark energy, a force that speed up the expansion of the cosmos.
- Demonstration of the Poincaré conjecture: known as the greatest mathematical puzzle of the twentieth century and one of the Seven Millennium Problems posed by the Clay Mathematics Institute. The Russian mathematician Grygori Perelman announced its resolution in 2003, although the peer review was delayed until 2006. That year, Perelman declined the invitation to collect in Madrid the Fields Medal, considered the Nobel of Mathematics, to avoid becoming a "pet" of the mathematical world.
- Gene therapy: in 2007 scientist succeed to insert a gene into a patient in order to cure a disease, namely, a type of blindness called Leber congenital amaurosis, which is caused by mutations in the RPE65 gene and is hereditary. Patients undergoing therapy experienced improvement in their vision and suffered no side effects, so it is considered the first test conducted successfully. Since then, gene therapy trials have been carried out in a large number of diseases, particularly cancers and those included within the group of monogenic diseases, caused by a single gene disorder.
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| British researcher John B. Gurdon |
- The cellular reprogramming: John B. Gurdon (United Kingdom) and Shinya Yamanaka (Japan) received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2012 after discovering that specialized mature cells can be reprogrammed to develop into mature cells in all kind of tissues of the body. Gurdon had discovered in 1962 that the specialization of cells was reversible. In 2006, Yamanaka got mice reprogrammed mature cells into pluripotent stem cells, namely, immature cells capable of developing into any type of cell in the body. Their discovery is a major step in the field of regenerative medicine.
- The graphene revolution: the Nobel Prize in Physics 2010 recognized the work of the Russian scientists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, "for his innovative experiments with graphene in two dimensions", a transparent material, very flexible, with excellent thermal and electrical conduction, sturdy and lightweight. Although already known for over half a century, graphene went unnoticed for decades. Now it is considered the material of the future, with a large number of applications in various fields, mainly technology (faster microprocessors, resilient electrical devices, electronic paper...).
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