Question: What are the 10 Big Science Stories of 2008?

[LongTomH]

Open for nominations!

[Pharaoh]

1. CERN

Cern throws switch on largest machine ever built
Live: Scientists at Cern, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva, have switched on their giant particle collider. Read Stuart Jeffries' G2 feature on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
Comments (290)
Switch-on of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty

07:19 BST
The big day has finally arrived. After 20 years of planning and almost a decade of building, Cern, the European particle physics laboratory, is ready to put its shiny new particle collider through its paces.

In an hour or two, Cern researchers will attempt to send a beam of protons around the Large Hadron Collider for the first time. If it works, it will pave the way for the first collisions in around a month's time. From then on, scientists will have 20 years or so to direct the machine's muscle at some of the most profound mysteries in science.

Cern is buzzing with activity this morning. In the press room I can overhear more languages than I can count. The good thing about being here at Cern, where Tim Berners-Lee invented the internet, is that you can be fairly sure the video feeds from the control room and the wireless networking won't crash halfway through the day. At least I hope that's a safe bet.

I was half expecting some protesters outside the gates this morning. Perhaps the odd placard pleading scientists to think again before throwing the big switch. But it seems that for all the bluster in the press, no-one is worried enough about the machine destroying the world to wave a banner or chain themselves to the gates.

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. We'll never really know, because sports got 400,000,000,000% more coverage than science.

Ask a question about one of the Super Bowl player's preference in jeans brand or what Michael Phelps had for breakfast on day 3 of the Olympics or perhaps the Pitts' children or American Idol.

[patrice]

3. Evidence of water on Mars. nt

[krispos42]

11. I've known about that for YEARS!

[patrice]

12. he, he . . . Now wait a minute, that's NOT water on Mars!

Two can play this game :D . . .

That's a glass with water in it on something inside a wrapper with the word "Mars" on it.

On edit: a glass with something that looks like water in it (could be vodka) . . .

[joshcryer]

14. Just to be more precise, evidence of standing bodies of water on Mars!

What a great vindication for guys like me who are Mars enthuasiasts and followed the evidence even when it was slim!

[metapunditedgy]

4. The (ongoing) Hubble Telescope saga. Politics, Science, and Engineering

snafus all rolled into one story. (Also ties into space shuttle policy and everything that entails.)

More broadly, I'd nominate the "War on Science," or the battle between science-types and Bush admin-types. NASA, Hansen, etc.

[metapunditedgy]

5. Some big medical stories, too, although that's not my field.

Using stem cells to regrow a woman's trachea sounds pretty impressive and (hopefully) a sign of good things to come.

[n2doc]

6. Visual evidence for planets around other stars

Ice ubiquitous on Mars

Two recent biggies...

[theoldman]

7. The complete DNA of some animals.

Now we know more about how closely we are related to them.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

8. Martian Rovers still Roving

An experiment that keeps going far beyond the initial mission parameters represents the raw tenacity of our spirit to learn.

I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow's robots look upon the rovers as heroes of a sort, and certainly role models.

[Speck Tater]

9. But when will science discover the cure for the common

conservative?

There must be some kind of psychiatric drug that can cure conservatism.

[seasat]

10. A Democratic president elected

Seriously, science in the US has been severely hurt due to their policies. They've privatized research that used to go to independent universities. They've gutted funding for every scientific activity except for weapons research. They severely crippled NASA by mandating a mission to Mars without increasing funding. They promoted political opinion over the scientific method. They hampered environmental progress by trashing the EPA with tactics like closing their regional libraries. I could go on and on but they've hurt scientific research in ways that will take the Obama administration years to correct. Electing Obama was the biggest science news for my field (oceanography) this year.

[anigbrowl]

13. Memristors

A memristor is a kind of electronic component, first predicted in 1971, whose resistance varies when a current is applied to it and stays that way until the current is applied again. Memristors were first brought to life in the lab earlier this year by researchers at HP. Crucially, they are easy to make. The prototypes are manufactured in a plant that also fabricates inkjet components...which means that it won't be that long before they begin to show up in manufacture.

Other fundamental electronic components include resistors (which provide a fixed level of resistance to current), capacitors (which store up current and then release it all at once) and transistors (which act as switches controlled by the application of a current). Every electronic device we know at present is made up of some combination of these three devices.

A memristor can change its resistance when a current of sufficient voltage is applied. It will then retain that resistance indefinitely. It can be read by a much lower voltage, with no change). This is like the way data is stored on a disk; in the memory of your computer, the data must be constantly refreshed. For practical purposes, a memristor can replace 10 or more transistors and other components. In tests, data densities of 100GBit/cm2 have been demonstrated. Speeds are still slow...by memory standards. Compared to hard disk, they're much faster.

Memristors are likely to see heavy use in neural network operations, which are very computationally intensive, and other places where FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays, chips which can rearrange their own processing circuitry) are used. For now, picture your typical kick-ass $1000 computer of today....now make it about 10-20 times faster and give it 64-256GB of RAM. By, oh...2015 or so.

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/dec08/7024

[joshcryer]

15. Good one. Great nomination, there.

[Orsino]

16. The current issue of Discover magazine has their top 100 of the year...

...being unveiled one-by-one on the Web:

http://discovermagazine.com/columns/top-100-stories-of-2008

Their number 1 is the end of the Oil Age.

[Juche]

17. Off the top of my head, I remember a couple that stood out

First supercomputer to break the petaflop (10^15) barrier

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


Windpipe made from stem cells and implanted in a woman

http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2008/11/stem_cell_throat_op_success.html

[ColbertWatcher]

18. Here are some ...

... Along with CERN, water discovered on Mars and throughout the universe, the windpipe-stem cell story and Hubble news, here are some I've collected for my regular Friday "most important news story" thread (some with links, some not so much):

OUTER SPACE-RELATED
India successfully launches its first unmanned moon mission, Chandraayan 1

the first Chinese astronaut (taikonaut) goes on a space walk

HIV/AIDS-RELATED
scientists theorize AIDS may have been around in 1908

New Yorkers are contracting HIV at three times the national rate

missing link discovered in the evolutionary history of HIV

Researchers discover the “Achilles heel” of the HIV virus

STEM CELL-RELATED
transplanted blood stem cells from a person naturally resistant to AIDS may have cured one patient New York Times

scientists produce blood in lab using stem cells

Japanese researchers use stem cells to create functioning human brain tissue ABC Net

POLICY-RELATED
Louisiana GOP governor signs Christer "Science Education Act" into law allowing teachers to bring "supplemental textbooks" into science classes and school district of Clayton County, Georgia loses accreditation, the first U.S. district to do so in 40 years

California State Supreme Court rules doctors may not discriminate against gays and lesbians in medical treatment

a federal judge ruled that the University of California can reject courses that fail to fulfill their admissions requirements. Even if the Association for Christian Schools International says the classes are okay (http://missingthepoint.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/acsivuc-ruling.pdf">ACSI v. Stearns)

lax security at US biolabs

VECTOR-RELATED
spread of West Nile virus in Los Angeles

Bayer sued as maker of pesticide that kills bees; unrelated explosion at Bayer plant in West Virginia

ENVIRONMENT-RELATED
a 19-square mile section of the Markham Ice Shelf has broken off Canada's Ellesmere Island and is now floating in the Arctic Ocean

1/5 of world's coral already dead (AFP)

4.28 billion year old rocks were discovered by scientists outside Quebec

MISCELLANEOUS
uncontacted tribe photographed in the Amazon rainforest (Survival International)

Apparent suicide of anthrax mailer suspect

Scientists discover enzyme that helps cancerous tumors spread
http://newsok.com/ou-discovery-could-slow-spread-of-cancer/article/3323558">News OK

Spain extends legal rights to apes

Large Population Of Gorillas Discovered In The Republic of the Congo

Expelled takes a dump at the box office