As 2018 has come to an end, here is a sneak peek into the top scientific innovations and discoveries made across the globe in the past year.
To stars and beyond: In February, American aerospace manufacturer SpaceX, owned by the visionary Elon Musk, performed the much-awaited test flight of the Falcon Heavy and carried a cherry red Tesla roadster to an orbit beyond Mars. Later in a statement, Musk expressed his desire to colonise Mars to prevent human species from the dangers of a possible World War III.
Hacking the human body: In November, a Chinese scientist shocked the scientific world with the claim that he has produced the first-ever genetically altered babies.
NASA launched new spacecraft: As NASA’s Opportunity, a robotic rover which was active on Mars since 2004, earlier got caught in the Martian dust storm thus incommunicado, it introduced three new space-missions namely the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), Parker Solar Probe and InSight to probe into the solar system.
Congress of scientists: As surprising as it may sound, a record number of scientists ran for seats in Congress and as many as eight were elected in the past year.
Birth by the same-sex parents: Amid the glorious uncertainties, a team of scientists in China successfully delivered pups with genetic material from two dads and two moms. Only pups with two moms survived more than 48-hours.
The animal who weighed 26,000 pounds: The past year, South African scientists discovered the fossils of a 26,000 pounds weighed dinosaur who once walked the earth. Ledumahadi mafube, which literally means “a giant thunderclap at dawn”, was a close relative of sauropod dinosaurs.
Rare earth materials discovered: 2018 remained an important year in terms of scientific discoveries as the Japanese scientists discovered a centuries’ worth of rare-earth metals in deep sea mud, located near Minami-Tori-shima in the northwest Pacific.
A newborn planet: On July 2, astronomers claimed to have taken the picture of a newborn planet. PDS 70b is an exoplanet and a few times larger than Jupiter.
Water found on Mars: On July 25, NASA reported the discovery of a subglacial lake on Mars, 1.5 km below the southern polar ice cap which extends about 20km sideways.
