The following is an excerpt from Alan Boyle | December 27, 2011 | msnbc.com |
The past year brought us the supercomputer that trounced flesh-and-blood champions on the “Jeopardy” TV show … genetic discoveries that showed us the tangles in humanity’s family tree … a tsunami that shouldn’t have been as catastrophic as it was … and neutrinos that shouldn’t be going as fast as they seem to. Which scientific twist of 2011 do you find most intriguing? Now’s the time to cast your vote for the top science story of 2011.
This year’s crop of top stories is trickier than usual because they cross so many lines. I’ve pared them down to a list of 11, but the only reason I’m able to do that is because of the way the lines are being drawn. I’ve already touched on two of the biggest science stories of 2011 in our “Year in Space” roundup: the end of the space shuttle era and the avalanche of extrasolar planets. Our “Ancient Mysteries” roundup casts a spotlight on the big stories in archaeology, anthropology and paleontology. I’m also leaving out some big stories with technology angles, such as the Arab Spring protests and the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
So what’s left? In this list, I’m stressing the twists in science and technology that go against expectations — or set up great expectations for the year ahead. I’m also including some personal favorites that you can feel free to quibble over. Check out this chronological list, review the details by clicking on the links, then cast your vote for the year’s top science story:
Japan hit by quake, tsunami, nuclear crisis: The magnitude-8.9 quake that hit Japan in March qualifies as a top story on any scale, but the safety gaps at the Fukushima nuclear facility showed scientifically how nature can confound engineers’ best-laid plans. It was just this month that Japan’s prime minister announced the facility was in a stable state of “cold shutdown.” Fukushima may be an albatross around the neck of the nuclear power industry for years to come. Or maybe not. Check out “After the Wave,” msnbc.com’s special report about the earthquake’s aftermath.
AIDS virus on the run? An international study finds that people who take antiretroviral drugs — medicine that weakens the HIV virus that causes AIDS — not only benefit from treatment but are far less likely to infect their sexual partners. The finding was so remarkable that the results were made public four years early, and last week the editors of the journal Science hailed it as the year’s top breakthrough.
Climate highs and lows: This month, a U.N. climate conference reached agreement on a new plan to control greenhouse-gas emissions, but it’s not clear whether the plan will pay off. Meanwhile, a former climate skeptic says he no longer doubts the reality of global warming, the climate issue creates a controversy on the GOP campaign trail, “Climategate 2.0″ fails to gain traction, and Arctic sea ice is close to record lows.
Goodbye, Tevatron … hello, Higgs boson? After 28 years of service, the Tevatron collider was shut down in Illinois in September, leaving the Large Hadron Collider as the only experiment hunting for the elusive Higgs boson. Discovery of that particle could show scientists how mass arose in the universe. Researchers at the LHC suspect that they’ve got the subatomic bugger cornered, but the actual discovery (or determination that it doesn’t exist after all) will have to wait until next year.
Faster-than-light neutrinos? Physicists at CERN and Italy’s Gran Sasso laboratory say they’ve clocked bunches of neutrinos traveling between the two labs at a speed that’s just a bit faster than the speed of light — something that relativity theory contends should be….
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