Top Ten Scientific Discoveries of 2007

Josh Fink writes "Time Magazine has a piece about the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2007. '#1. Stem Cell Breakthroughs - In November, Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and molecular biologist James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin reported that they had reprogrammed regular skin cells to behave just like embryonic stem cells. The breakthrough may someday allow scientists to create stem cells without destroying embryos -- sidestepping the sticky ethical issues and opposition from the U.S. government that surround embryonic stem-cell research -- but that day is still a ways off. ' Also included in the top 10 editorial are pieces on the top 10 medical breakthroughs, the top 10 man made disasters and the top 10 green 'ideas'."

Top 10 Destroyed Discoveries

[coinreturn]

In October, researchers from Bangor University in Wales were trawling an ocean shelf off the coast of north Iceland when they stumbled on what is believed to be the world's oldest living animal: a 405 year-old clam. Or it was living, until researchers had to kill it to determine the clam's age by studying rings on its shell.

Aren't we just a great at discovering?

Re:And on Slashdot

[Facetious]

There are some seriously angry people with mod points today. I expect this one will get "-1: Flamebait"

missing off the "man made disaters" list

[Anonymous Coward]

Iraq

Top 20

[tokul]

Make top20. Then you can have 20 pages full of ads instead of just 10.

Re:htmlslideshow - 2008?

[Ashbory]

Maybe next year they will discover that you can put more than one paragraph on a web page.

Re:Further correction....

[crymeph0]

Huh? If stem cells really have the potential their proselytizers would have us believe, the pharmcos would have their alleged puppet allow them to kill newborns for stem cells, if need be.

Re:Dissapointing

[Anonymous Coward]

The supernova was quite significant to astrophysics. SN2006gy appears to be a new class of supernova, and thus has changed the way we think of the late evolution of massive starts. I would argue that this was one of the few discoveries that actually deserved to be on the list.

http://mrsquid.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]

Re:Lost in the "oh goody non embrionic stem cells.

[jacquesm]

And that tends to change on how you define an embryo. According to some an embryo is a fertilized ovum, according to others it is a partically developed organism that stands a fair chance of being carried to term. The line is blurry and as with all of natures works it defies definition and can not be caught in a simple binary category. It's a continuum, just like 'tall' and 'hot'. Some collections of cells are more of an embryo than others, with a 'peak' of 'embryoness' somewhere in those magical 9 months. A born baby is not an embryo, a fertilized ovum probably also isn't one.

Re:htmlslideshow

[john83]

Warning: This article links to four top ten lists that only display one item at a time.

I hope Time gets paid per impression because that's the only way they'll get ad revenue from me. (And viewing all of those forty pages seems like a good way to punish the advertizers who enable articles like these.)

Unless someone else posts these top ten lists, I won't be reading them at all. I refuse to view Time's website at all for exactly this reason.

Re:Lost in the "oh goody non embrionic stem cells.

[NMerriam]

Calling someone a "zealot" for not wanting to kill babies for research is a bit much.

Completely avoiding the issue of whether an embryo is a "baby" or not, we do lots of medical research on cadavers. We don't go around killing people in order to obtain cadavers for that research, any more than people go around creating and destroying embryos solely to perform research on. I find it strange that learning about human biology is perfectly okay with the remains of a 90 year old man, but not with the remains of an aborted fetus.

Re:Obligatory Global Warming nod

[LarsWestergren]

But it gets better. Basically Global Warming is at fault for all weather bad

Now where does it say that?

Regardless if the earth was warmer before,

Thank you, this is known to everyone and accounted for. It is the rate of change that is scary.

regarldess of the fact we don't know out own planet's ideal temperature

There is no such thing as an ideal temperature, and no one has claimed that there is.

regardless of the fact we can't even forcast a year ahead

Climate is not the same thing as weather.

regardless of the fact that the people who win from all the Global Warming scare mongering are politicians and big business.

No, if global warming and its predicted consequences are real, we all lose.

IPCC as the #1 green idea? That bunch of bad science and fraud?

Any proof of these claims?