A year of science
14 Dec 2011 by Evoluted New Media
It’s been a busy year for science – and for Laboratory News. We take a look back as some of the highs – and lows – of 2011
Perhaps one of the biggest – and most debated – stories to hit the scientific headlines this year was that Einstein might actually be wrong. In September scientists at CERN were puzzled as neutrinos seemed to be moving faster than the speed of light. In a brave move, they opened their work up to scrutiny by the wider scientific community, asking them to review the experiment before they submitted their results for publication. They were inundated with suggestions of what might have gone wrong, but after refining and re-running their experiments they’ve reached the same conclusion – neutrinos do travel faster than light. Their work has been submitted to the Journal of High Energy Physics but it has yet to be viewed by the scientific community – we await the results of the peer review with bated breath.
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Ununquadium has been confirmed by IUPAC[/caption]
While the ever-elusive Higgs boson wasn’t found during CERN’s run this year, two new chemical elements have been confirmed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). Ununquadium and Ununhexium – elements 114 and 116 – were confirmed to exist in July, but their discoverers are yet to officially name them. Scientists have now moved on to creating even heavier elements in the hope that these super-heavy elements may be able to power nuclear power stations.
The safety of nuclear power has been called in to question this year following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Lab Rant columnist Leila Sattary debated the pros and cons of nuclear power while we asked whether the government should be rethinking their plant to build 14 nuclear reactors on UK soil following the devastation in Fukushima in March.
This year has been a milestone year for space. First we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin. Then after 30 years in service, NASA retired their Space Shuttle fleet. The 135th and final Shuttle launch – Atlantis in July – was watched by millions worldwide. However, with no replacement in the pipeline, NASA is reliant on the Russian Soyuz rocket to ferry their astronauts to the International Space Station. Even the Soyuz hasn’t escaped the news this year – an unmanned mission to stock the ISS with supplies suffered a malfunction in August, after which all manned flights were suspended. Thankfully a successful mission in November restocked the ISS and allowed a change of astronauts on board.
Elsewhere, six astronauts ‘returned’ home in November, after a year-and-a-half ‘travelling’ to and from Mars. In reality, the six men were in an isolation facility in Moscow, but they simulated a 500-day mission to the Red Planet to help scientists understand the physical and psychological challenges that astronauts would face on a real deep space mission. Although a manned mission to Mars is not likely any time soon, this is still a major step towards exploring our neighbouring planet.
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Scientists attempt to contact the 40-year-old Prospero[/caption]
Closer to home, the ESA have been debating what missions should be funded to push the boundaries of our space knowledge, while scientists at MSSL attempted to contact the only UK-launched satellite, Prospero, in time for its 40th anniversary. It looks like the team might have been successful in contacting the satellite, but whether they can command it is yet to be discovered.
But we’ve also been warned that the amount of space junk in low orbit around the Earth has reached tipping point and that any collisions of this junk could be catastrophic. Unfortunately, Russia may have just added to this after Phobos-Grunt – a probe which was to be sent to Mars’ moon Phobos – experienced problems soon after it was launched into Earth’s orbit. As it stands, the probe is uncontactable.[caption id="attachment_25680" align="alignright" width="200"]
Secondary school science lessons are 'too prescriptive'[/caption]
A central theme throughout Laboratory News this year has been education and we’ve covered the whole spectrum, from science in secondary schools right up to higher education. In February, secondary science lessons were described as too prescriptive and were criticised for not offering students the opportunity to design and carry out scientific experiments. In March, another report revealed that nearly 500 schools in England failed to enter a single student for A-level physics in 2009 but in October, we learned that the number of students choosing to take STEM subjects – including physics – was on the up. Indeed, our good friend Dermot Martin discovered that hard core A-levels are back in fashion, with chemistry a particular favourite.
However, the outlook isn’t all rosy. In November 2010, the government announced plans for leading universities to charge up to £9,000 tuition fees per year from 2012. Most universities have chosen this option, leading many students to feel they simply can’t afford university. In January, the government announced caps on immigration. Our friends at CaSE predicted the cap will eliminate roughly a third of the applicants for skilled worker visas, but “if the rules are correctly calibrated, we hope that enough scientists and engineers with be able to enter the UK to meet the sector’s needs.”
Both these measures will limit the future of UK science as the brightest minds can’t afford to – or won’t be allowed to – study and work in the UK. While some minor modification has been made in these policies this year, we’re yet to see what their full effect will be.
The global scientific landscape has already shifted in the 21st Century – while the USA and UK still feature near the top of the R&D rankings, China has been sneaking its way up the charts and may even overtake the US by 2013.
Meanwhile, talented scientists already in the UK face job losses. In February, Pfizer announced they were to close their R&D plant in Sandwich, Kent by 2012. They estimated that 2,400 jobs would be lost from the area, but there was good news in June when 350 of these were saved as the pharmaceuticals giant failed to externalise some of their activity to a strategic partner.
But further bad news hit Kent – the explosives research and forensic analysis area of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) announced they intent to pull out of their Fort Halstead site by 2016.
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FSS to close next year[/caption]
At the end of 2010 the government announced the closure of the Forensic Science Service (FSS) as it was making a loss of £2m a month. As the debate about the closure rumbled on throughout the early part of the year, scientists were left reeling because they felt they were not consulted about the decision.
“It has become clear that minimal – if any – consultation with private providers, with the scientific community or with the employees took place,” said Steve Thomas. The service is due to be closed by March 2012.
But there was some interesting forensics news in July – chicken wing sauce, dish soap and a clapper board made for a novel technique for analysing blood spatters according to researchers from Washington State University.
Food safety and contamination has been a hot topic this year. In January, it was discovered that German eggs were contaminated with dioxins, while in May there was an outbreak of E. coli, again originating in Germany. The outbreak made headlines around the world, but our girl Leila was on the case looking at what really happened, and whether the panic stricken public made the situation worse.
In August, we looked at lab-grown meat: did you know it has the potential to reduce greenhouse gases by 96%? But would you eat it? Well, according to our online poll: 52% of you said no, while 32% said they would eat cultured meat. The remaining 16% weren’t sure.
While the Nobel Prizes usually stir a lot of debate, this year it wasn’t just over who should have won. Ralph Steinman, who was awarded a share of the prize in physiology or medicine for his work on the innate immune system, died of pancreatic cancer three days before the award announcements. Did the committee award the prize posthumously – something which isn’t normally accepted – or share it between the other winners? Since the award was made in good faith, the prize stood – and in our opinion, rightly so.
And we’ve had some pretty exciting stuff going on at LabNews Towers too – namely that we reached an important milestone, our 40th birthday. And as a present to ourselves – and to you – we’ve even got a new website!
We feel like we’ve put on a pretty good show this year – kicking off with our Great Debate feature series on Animal Testing and the Amazing DNA giveaway in May. We were particularly pleased with our 40th birthday issue, and intend to continue the celebrations for the next few months.
While we have had to say goodbye to our fabulous columnist Leila Sattary – who gave us many hours of pleasure with Lab Rant – a new columnist has been enlisted. We’re very pleased to welcome Russ Swan to the team – keep an eye out for Lab Babble in the next issue of Laboratory News.
