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Top 10 Scientific Advances of 2004 381

Posted by michael from the rated-s-for-shoulders-of-giants dept.
TarrVetus writes "Science Magazine's The Top Ten Science Breakthroughs of 2004 have been announced. The winner: The NASA Rovers and their evidence of water on Mars. The runner up was the Hobbit species found in Indonesia. Other breakthroughs include cloned human embryos and the first discovered pulsar pair."
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Top 10 Scientific Advances of 2004 More

Top 10 Scientific Advances of 2004

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  • What about the Beagle? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 17, 2004 @03:05PM (#11119197)
    Largest man-created crater on the surface of Mars? That's got to count for something!

  • what about SpaceshipOne? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hsmith ( 818216 ) on Friday December 17, 2004 @03:05PM (#11119202)
    I consider that a pretty awesome feat as i assume many others do

    • Re:what about SpaceshipOne? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by arkanes ( 521690 ) <arkanes.gmail@com> on Friday December 17, 2004 @03:09PM (#11119246) Homepage
      An impressive engineering, technical, and economic feat, but not one that really impacts science. It's not about the coolest applications of science, but rather about the coolest discoveries in science.
      • given that, what about "Medicines for the World's Poor"? "Public-private partnerships" are not only not a scientific develpoment (but a socioeconomic one) but it's not even new! It's just "new" (aka, less limited) in medicine. This list is political and you cannot rationalize it otherwise.

      • Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)

        by mcc ( 14761 ) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Friday December 17, 2004 @07:26PM (#11121622) Homepage
        What's up with this one then?
        • Medicines for the World's Poor. "Public-private partnerships" emerged as a force in 2004, according to Science magazine, affecting the way medicines are developed and delivered to emerging nations.
        Sounds like applied science to me.

        Personally though if I were Science I wouldn't give SpaceShipOne a prize this year, since getting someone into space isn't technically by itself a new development in even applied science. I'd give it to them in a year or two-- once they manage to successfully begin operating their spaceliner business, since that IS going to be a dramatic change in how science is applied...

        • Re:Hmm (Score:3, Interesting)

          by FleaPlus ( 6935 )
          Actually though, one major breakthrough in their design is the shuttlecock-style reentry, which I'm pretty sure has never been done before. I'm expecting that it will start showing up as a standard reentry method.
    • I agree that it was an amazing feat, but SpaceshipOne wasn't really a "breakthrough". It's something we've already done several times before.

    • I consider that a pretty awesome feat as i assume many others do

      An awesome feat to be sure, but it isn't a scientific advance in and of itself. I would categorize it as a technical/engineering achievement (i.e., effective application of scientific knowledge to effect a specific result). To be a scientific, there must be a contribution of new knowledge or observational evidence that contributes to the development of knowledge. (Although I suppose we can argue about how much new knowledge the SS1 devel

    • what about SpaceshipOne?

      I consider that a pretty awesome feat as i assume many others do

      Yes, it was an awesome feat for an individual company to do such a thing, but as far as scientific breakthroughs -- maybe in the early to mid 60s, but not in 2004.

  • Hobbits? (Score:2, Informative)

    by sbergstrom ( 107349 )
    If I remember correctly, the finding of the new Hobbit species was discredited as a "dwarf" mutant of a long-discovered human ancestor. Was this discrediting discredited itself?
    • If I remember correctly, the finding of the new Hobbit species was discredited as a "dwarf" mutant of a long-discovered human ancestor.

      No, no, no! Hobbits and dwarves are completely different! Dwarves get a bonus to constitution, while hobbits get extra dexterity! Really, what sort of a geek are you?

      • The Office (Score:3, Funny)

        by GoofyBoy ( 44399 )
        David: Look, whether or not Anton is a midget, or a dwarf-
        Man: No, he's a midget.
        David: What's the difference?
        Man: Well, a dwarf is someone who has disproportionately short arms and legs.
        David: Oh, I know the ones. (He does a dwarf impression)
        Man: Yeah, it's caused by a hormone deficiency.
        David: Yeah. Bloody hormones.
        Man: A midget is still a dwarf, but their arms and legs are in proportion.
        David: Sure. (Gareth suddenly appears out of no-where)
        Gareth: So, what's an elf?
        David:

    • Re:Hobbits? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by wronski ( 821189 ) on Friday December 17, 2004 @03:41PM (#11119584)
      "If I remember correctly, the finding of the new Hobbit species was discredited as a "dwarf" mutant of a long-discovered human ancestor. Was this discrediting discredited itself?"

      Most paleontologist believe this is a new species. The bones (they aren't even fossilised!) were found by an Australian/Indonesian team that was originaly lookng for evidence of the people who first colonized Australia. Apparently a bigshot Indonesian paleontologist got pissed of by being left out (some scientific bigshots expect to get their names papers without having to actually do any work), and then... [boingboing.net]

      One of Indonesia's leading palaeontologists, Professor Teuku Jacob of Gadjah Mada University in Jakarta, has grabbed the hobbit remains and locked them away in his safe, refusing to let other scientists study them.


      In addition, he rejected the widespread view that the hobbits are a separate human species, claiming they are a pygmy form of modern humans who suffered microcephaly, a disorder that produces a small brain.

      The Australian scientists who dug up the bones of the hobbits, officially dubbed Homo floresiensis, have pleaded with Professor Jacob to return the bones as they may contain vital DNA clues as to their exact ancestry. The seven skeletons were found last year in a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores by an Australian and Indonesian team.

  • How many get debunked later? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JossiRossi ( 840900 ) on Friday December 17, 2004 @03:07PM (#11119226) Homepage
    Just as a generic curiosity. I wonder how many winners of the past eventually turned out to be false or incorreect? Cause the Hobbits are still debated (although it's not some big controversy). Just to put "breakthroughs" in perspective, because some breakthroughs just lead to empty mineshafts, not gold.
    • That's why I was looking for the top 10 science honor list from like 1999 or 2003. I wanted to compare where older lists have gone. I couldn't find squat!

      • Well the 1902 winner was the discovery of Phrenology:-)

        On a more serious note, do you ever stop and think that 500 years from now our ancestors are going to be making fun of us and our backwards notions of the world?

        • On a more serious note, do you ever stop and think that 500 years from now our ancestors are going to be making fun of us and our backwards notions of the world?

          Seriously, no, I don't -- because, just about 500 years ago, something fundamental changed in our worldview: science, in the modern sense, was born. The scientists of the Renaissance (Galileo, Kepler, Newton come to mind) were wrong about many things, but they were right about many more, and they established the methods we still use today to und

  • Award should go to creation scientists (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nine Tenths of The W ( 829559 ) on Friday December 17, 2004 @03:13PM (#11119292)
    For discovering that all previous science and history is false and the world is in fact a giant ant farm created 6000 years ago by a cloud dwelling egomaniac

  • Just in case the site gets slashdotted (Score:5, Funny)

    by nizo ( 81281 ) * on Friday December 17, 2004 @03:14PM (#11119304) Homepage Journal
    Here is the list:

    1. NASA rover finds water on Mars
    2. Hobbits discovered in Indonesia, still searching for the one ring
    3. Human embryos cloned
    4. First pulsar pair discovered
    5. Atkins diet proved sound
    6. Turmeric found to be highly protective against many forms of cancer
    7. Study shows eating chlorophyll will really oxygenate your blood
    8. Elusive Batboy located
    9. Discovery of hair-straightening treatment that causes water molucules to shrink
    10. New condom developed that contains benzocaine to prolong the sex act

  • what about the remaining days in 04? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Dreadlord ( 671979 ) on Friday December 17, 2004 @03:15PM (#11119318) Journal
    If you have a scientific breakthrough, please wait till the next year to announce it, otherwise you won't make it the top 10 list.

  • Cloning / Souls (Score:2, Interesting)

    by rgf71 ( 448062 )
    I love what Prof. Higgins said about the human cloning:

    "The fact it can be done begins to move us away from some of the mysteries surrounding human beings; things like the existence of a soul, which frankly is pure imagination," he told the BBC News website.

    Amen, brotha.

  • No Exoplanet Picture? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by LithiumX ( 717017 ) on Friday December 17, 2004 @03:18PM (#11119342)
    We have the first actual picture of a planet orbiting another star... not inferential data, not radio info, but optical (not sure about wavelength, but that's irrelevant).

    And it's not even on the list? The still questionable "discovery" of a wet Martian past makes the top of the list, but a deffinitive leap of scientific discovery (ie a fuzzy and blurred but very real picture of an extrasolar planet) doesn't even receive mention on the list (even if the article was kind enough to mention it)?

  • Great, more units... (Score:4, Funny)

    by FooAtWFU ( 699187 ) on Friday December 17, 2004 @03:22PM (#11119384) Homepage
    From the pulsar article:
    "Pulsars are intriguing and puzzling objects. They pack as much mass as the Sun crammed into an object with a cross-sectional area about as large as Boston,"
    Now, I'm originally from Philadelphia, so using its area as a unit doesn't particularly faze me... but the size of Boston? Come on! That's not even properly polysyllabic!
    • From Wikipedia: neutron stars (pulsars are typically spinning neutron stars that emit alot of EM radiation in regular bursts) are about 10-20km in diameter with masses of between 1.5 and 3 times the mass of Sol (approx. 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000kg).

      By that, the densisy is probably about eight LoC's per hogshead furlong.

  • Scientific errors (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The_Mystic_For_Real ( 766020 ) on Friday December 17, 2004 @03:31PM (#11119465)
    The fact it can be done begins to move us away from some of the mysteries surrounding human beings; things like the existence of a soul, which frankly is pure imagination

    I don't happen to believe in the soul as it appears in most religions, but I fail to see how a successful cloning experiment completely disproves the idea that helps countless millions cope with their lives. Statements like these hurt the image of the scientific community in the eyes of the public, i.e. the people the science is supposedly trying to improve the lives of.

    If he had really disproven the soul or God (which is impossible to to the vague nature of their descriptions) then he should by all means spread this proof, but since he hasn't, then he should just STFU.

    He is making scientific conclusions based on his faith that the soul is not real. That's just stupid.

    • Disprove? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by WotanKhan ( 150429 )
      There is a rather large difference between stating something "begins to moves us away from" and stating it "completely disproves" it. It is quite impossible to falsify the proposition that some definition of the soul may exist. No scientist could rationally claim otherwise.

      However, as our scientific understanding of a phenomenon grows, it naturally replaces the earlier, superstitious myths that sought to explain it. This is not to say that those myths are completely without value. They may indeed "help

    • >>I fail to see how a successful cloning experiment completely disproves the idea (of the soul).

      The reason that successful cloning sheds light on the idea of the soul is that the soul is supposedly the thing that makes us specially human - it (the soul) derives from the concept of the animus, or "spark of life". The church teaches that a soul can only be created by god, not humans. So, the successful cloning of a human, resulting in a living, thinking person, created by people by human ingenuity in
  • Following the debate on stem cell research in California (which we decided to go billions more in debt to fund) I learned some interesting things, though I admit the sources were more political than anything else.

    I've always wondered why the excitement over embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells seem to be safer, and umbilical chords and liposuction seem to be a plenty good source for these little wonders.

    Well had I hung my hat on the theory that it justified abortion (and that may have much to do with

    • Re:The buzz I heard is... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Otter ( 3800 )
      Well had I hung my hat on the theory that it justified abortion (and that may have much to do with it) until I learned about cloning embryos (listed above as one of the top 10 scientific advancements). And cloning embryos is a patentable process.

      You had it right the first time. There is no advantage from a patent point of view to using embryonic stem cells for a particular application. You could file the same thing with adult stem cells. The frenzy over stem cells (on both sides) is fallout from the aborto

    • the theory that [embryonic stem cells] justified abortion

      I don't get how people can end up in logical holes like that.

      There are allready aborted embryos. Right now, they are disposed off. If they were instead preserved and used to save lives, it would be a Good Thing(tm).

      And, if they were preserved, anti-abortion nutjobs could adopt them and reimplant them into their matrices.

      Opposing this research: waste.
      This research: saved lives.
      Who's "pro life", again, exactly? Sigh.
      • Way to oversimplify.

        The argument isn't we shouldn't use stem cells from ebryos currently going to waste, the argument is that allowing the use of embryonic stem cells will create a market for them, which will increase the number of abortions performed.

        Hell, I'm in favor of pursuing stem cell research as vigorously as possible, and your argument pisses me off.

        Their argument isn't irrational as you claim, it's a matter of different values. They see the risk of encouraging pregnancy for the purpose of abort

        • Their argument isn't irrational as you claim, it's a matter of different values. They see the risk of encouraging pregnancy for the purpose of aborting as greater than the risk of patients not benefitin from stem cell research. You think the opposite.

          I think it's a strawman argument built up as part of the carpet anti-abortion extravaganza, it's dishonest.

          If they really believed that the trouble lays in the sale of made-to-order embryos, they would campaign against that. Not against research on all abort
    • Problem with your argument is that, if that were the primary motivating force you'd expect the major drug companies to be backing the party in favor of stem cell research, namely the Democrats. Instead, their donations overwhelmingly favor the GOP. See this link for the numbers [opensecrets.org].

      Thus it would seem that drug companies, those most likely to be doing all the patenting, have a great deal more profit to be made and suffering people to exploit by keeping us tied to technologies that require them to develop no n
      • You seem smarter than the average bear, lemme run some things by you then... (some of this is for the sake of the other posters)

        The key is in the details, and one of the first distinctions made in this discussion is a particular kind of stem cell research -- embryonic. I'm unaware of any party that is against stem cell research, but then I don't belong to a political party either. You caught that distinction better than most, and I thank you for it.

        Even further lost in the other responses in this discus

  • Discrediting mention of junk DNA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lukesl ( 555535 ) on Friday December 17, 2004 @03:35PM (#11119523)
    As a biologist, I have to say that I'm incredibly disappointed by the inclusion of "junk" DNA in the list. I don't know what specific research results they're referring to when they say there's a breakthrough there, but the entire concept of "junk" DNA is absurd. I've never met a single molecular biologist who believed that non-coding regions were unimportant, and in fact it's been known for at least forty years that non-coding regions are important in regulation of gene expression. Maybe what bothers me most is the term "junk" DNA, which I've never actually heard another scientist use. It's a fictitious concept perpetuated by science writers so that they can feign surprise every time someone can attribute a function to a non-coding piece of DNA (and claim that the scientific community was surprised as well).

    All that aside, I'm sure there are big breakthroughs in our understanding of the role of non-coding regions, and it probably deserves to be mentioned. However, one important point to make is that in spite of all this, there ARE parts of the genome that are unquestionably useless evolutionary vestiges. This is not necessarily mysterious, but it is interesting (for example, providing what is in my mind the most convincing evidence of evolution).
    • As a biologist, I have to say that I'm incredibly disappointed by the inclusion of "junk" DNA in the list. I don't know what specific research results they're referring to when they say there's a breakthrough there

      They removed most of the DNA from lab mice and produced living, healthy mice with no apparent side effects.

      As a biologist, you should know this. Watch the news: stay up to date in your field.
    • I do agree that there is likely little useless stuff in our DNA. Junk though is a bad word. I would say it really means "introns." It's a different definition of the word than "useless space taker-upper."

    • Re:Discrediting mention of junk DNA (Score:5, Informative)

      by myc ( 105406 ) on Friday December 17, 2004 @04:24PM (#11120015)
      Here is a reference from the primary literature:

      Nobrega et al. Science 302:413- (2003).

      Nobrega et al. made 2 knockout mice, deleting 2 Mb and 1 Mb (Mb= 10e6 basepairs of DNA) regions, respectively, of the genome called "deserts", i.e., gene poor regions that nonetheless are highly conserved between humans and mice, but not humans and fish. The authors believed that since this sequence was conserved, it must not be junk, and therefore likely contains cis-acting regulatory sequences that important for gene regulation. When these regions were deleted, however, the mice developed normally and had no apparent defects or pathologies. In other words, what was once thought to be junk, then thought to not be junk, turns out to be junk again (sounds like a Fark cliche).

      Here is another link [sciencemag.org] that is informative. One possibility that is mentioned in this blurb is that the knockout mice are just defective in a non-obvious way.

    • As a biologist, I have to say that I'm incredibly disappointed by the inclusion of "junk" DNA in the list. I don't know what specific research results they're referring to when they say there's a breakthrough there, but the entire concept of "junk" DNA is absurd. I've never met a single molecular biologist who believed that non-coding regions were unimportant, and in fact it's been known for at least forty years that non-coding regions are important in regulation of gene expression.

      You haven't spoken to
  • In Korea, only old people clone CowboyNeal.

    Starting with a soulless being, they avoid the God problem.

  • Prof. Higgins (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BCGlorfindel ( 256775 ) <klassenk AT brandonu DOT ca> on Friday December 17, 2004 @03:39PM (#11119557) Journal
    But Professor Higgins also sees philosophical implications in the work... Science is about trying to understand where we come from, what our purpose is.

    Religion is about trying to understand what our purpose is. Anyone claiming science is for said purpose has merely made a religion for themselves out of science. Science is the accumulation of information using the scientific method. Repeat after me, science is in no way meant to be a search for our purpose as humans. Class dismissed. ;)

    • Re:Prof. Higgins (Score:5, Insightful)

      by abigor ( 540274 ) on Friday December 17, 2004 @03:56PM (#11119744)
      You are making the assumption that we have a purpose. There is no evidence indicating that might be the case, and in fact it is not at all necessary.

      • Re:Prof. Higgins (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Control Group ( 105494 )
        No, he's assuming nothing of the kind. He's simply saying that the search for purpose is not properly the province of science.

        This is true. The existence of a purpose is irrelevant to the statement. Whether or not we have one, the goal of science is not discerning its existence or what it is.

        • Re:Prof. Higgins (Score:3, Insightful)

          by abigor ( 540274 )
          He said: "Religion is about trying to understand what our purpose is."

          Not: "Religion is about searching for purpose, and if we discover one, understanding what it is."

          To me, he's assuming that we as humans have some greater purpose, and we just have to get busy and figure it out. I disagree with that assumption.

          I parsed the sentence differently than you, I guess. But I stick by my original comment.

    • Re:Prof. Higgins (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Religion is about trying to understand what our purpose is.

      No, philosophy is about trying to understand what our purpose is. Religion is about someone else telling you what they think the our purpose is based upon guesses and "just so" stories.

    • Re:Prof. Higgins (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Kaa ( 21510 )
      Science is the accumulation of information using the scientific method. Repeat after me, science is in no way meant to be a search for our purpose as humans. Class dismissed. ;)

      You fail the class :-)

      Accumulation of information is the province of librarians. Science tries to understand what's going on.

      And while speaking about the "purpose" of humans is clearly the domain of philosophy (not necessarily religious) and not science proper, I see no reason to frown on people who want to engage in philosophica

  • Greatest Contribution to the World (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    What about the Dudes who figured out how to filter cheap Vodka to make it semi drinkable?

    That's gotta count for something!

    See previous "Hacking Vodka" article here on /. http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/1 6/1731212&tid=133&tid=14/ [slashdot.org]

  • 1st physical evidence for string theory (Score:5, Informative)

    by thievery1017 ( 775961 ) on Friday December 17, 2004 @03:57PM (#11119748)
    ... seems to blow all that other crap away, even if the news [newscientist.com] was released in december. evidence of water once being on mars is big... but hardly surprising enough to rank at #1.

  • Clouds and frost on mars (Score:3, Informative)

    by FleaPlus ( 6935 ) on Friday December 17, 2004 @04:14PM (#11119919) Journal
    This page [nasa.gov] has some of the first pictures of clouds [nasa.gov] and frost [nasa.gov] on Mars, likely composed of water ice. It's really quite amazing.
  • If you look at the details of the discovery - the Hobbits lived with real life dragons, hunted minature oliphants and lived in the misty moutains, (plus the locals reputed name for the hobbits is a gaelic word that means trickery) it quickly becomes apparent that the whole thing is a hoax created to make Nature look stupid. Unfortunately, the editors at Nature weren't up on their Tolkien.
  • Human Cloning [amazon.com] is one of the top 10 advancements? When you talk about great advancements in science, you cannot divorce ethics and science. This is ridiculous.
  • I nominate:

    "The one week in 2004 that passed without Micro$oft having to issue a security update".
    • I nominate:
      "The one week in 2004 that passed without Micro$oft having to issue a security update".

      Sorry, wrong department. You want 'Myths and Fantasies'. Down the hall and to the left.

  • award for worst "scientific" conclusions (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ChipMonk ( 711367 ) on Friday December 17, 2004 @04:40PM (#11120146) Journal
    Right up there with the comment about souls, is this doozie:

    Jenet and Scott Ransom of McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, have developed a theoretical model to explain the behavior of this one-of-a-kind set of pulsars.

    "One of a kind"? Just because we haven't seen any others, means there are no others?

    For shame. Feynman would totally kick these people's asses.

  • Mars Water = Hype? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by smug_lisp_weenie ( 824771 ) <cbarski.4503440@bloglines.com> on Friday December 17, 2004 @04:40PM (#11120148) Homepage
    Ok, so the rover found that there were some funny-looking spherules in a crater on Mars. Maybe those spherules could be created if there had been water a long time ago... So it might be possible that a long time ago there might have been some puddles of water on Mars... This means that it might be possible that there is liquid water around on other planets outside of earth... Water is considered an important ingredient of life, although there is no reason to know that you couldn't have life without water, and even if water is needed, you need many, many more things to be just so for life to form besides a bit of water... Is it just me, or isn't this pretty damn underwhelming compared to the progress we've had in other sciences in the last decade? (human genome, internet, stem cells, etc.)

    Why do I always get the feeling that the scientists who get to decide that "major" advances such as Mars water have a personal interest in generating PR for their field?

    I agree that research in space is pretty neat and all and is worth doing, but couldn't we all agree that the discoveries recently at NASA have been pretty disappointing, even if they are valuable for some esoteric research fields?

    ...and how come when the whole "life on Mars" thing happened a few years back, the NASA researchers were all parading in front of TV cameras when they found some interesting "formations" on a mars rock found in a meteor, but then when those formation were found to be somewhat suspect, they were all mum about it... so all that the public saw about doubts of their hyped findings was a small article in the back of Scientific American? Are the NASA researchers really doing good science here?

    ...just to be clear, I'll gladly admit my ignorance- I hope someone can give some clear answers to my questions and can tell me if there is really something exciting enough about these spherules in some Mars crater...

    ---
    Conrad Barski

  • "Space scientist" = TImes Man of the Year (Score:3, Interesting)

    by peter303 ( 12292 ) on Friday December 17, 2004 @04:57PM (#11120315)
    I submitted the the idea of the space scientists/adventurer to Time Magazine for its Man of the Year. This would note efforts of both the Rover/Cassini teams and Space Ship One. I cant think of a comparable political, international or cultural achievement. Perhaps they'll give to Karl Rove who managed to keep a shakey president in office when they announce it Sunday.

  • Hobbits? Idiots! They're Minehune (Score:3, Interesting)

    by F34nor ( 321515 ) * on Friday December 17, 2004 @07:12PM (#11121501)
    The Minehune are a little people who lived in Hawaii and were famous for building technical projects in a single night. Hmmm, not a long way across the Pacfic from Indonesia? We should do genetic studies of the bones and cross refernce to natives on Kauai, who haved claimed as recently as the 60's era census to be Minehune

    http://kalama.doe.hawaii.edu/~laakea/class/maika i/ fishpond.html

    http://www.spiritsouthseas.com/menehune.htm

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menehune

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