2019 In Science

A number of significant scientific events occurred in 2019.

Events

January

*1 January The '' New Horizons'' space probe flies by Kuiper belt object 486958 Arrokoth (nicknamed ''Ultima Thule''), the outermost close encounter of any Solar System object.
*2 January A study finds that tons of methane, a greenhouse gas, are released into the atmosphere by melting ice sheets in Greenland.
*3 January
**China's National Space Administration (CNSA) achieves the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon with its Chang'e 4 mission.
**Scientists report the engineering of crops with a photorespiratory "shortcut" to boost plant growth by 40% in real-world agronomic conditions.
*4 January
**Researchers at Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) report a way to control properties of excitons and change the polarisation of light they generate, which could lead to transistors that undergo less energy loss and heat dissipation.
**Researchers design an inhalable form of messenger RNA aerosol that could be administered directly to the lungs to help treat diseases such as cystic fibrosis.
*6 January
** A partial solar eclipse occurred.
*8 January
**Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) report a new way to stabilise the "tearing modes" in fusion reactors, using radio waves to create small changes in the temperature of the plasma, allowing it to be controlled more easily.
**IBM unveils IBM Q System One, its first integrated quantum computing system for commercial use.
*9 January
**Astronomers announce the discovery of a second repeating fast radio burst (FRB) source, named FRB 180814.
**The first SD card with a storage capacity of 1 terabyte (TB) is announced by Lexar.
**Astronomers at the University of Warwick present the first direct evidence of white dwarf stars solidifying into crystals.

*10 January Astronomers propose that AT2018cow, a very powerful astronomical explosion, 10–100 times brighter than a normal supernova, may have been a white dwarf being pulled apart by a black hole; or, a supernova leaving behind a black hole or a neutron star, the creation of a compact body being observed for the first time.
*11 January Researchers at the University of Michigan demonstrate a new approach to 3D printing, based on the lifting of shapes from a vat of liquid, which is up to 100 times faster than conventional processes.
*14 January A study in the journal '' PNAS'' finds that Antarctica experienced a sixfold increase in yearly ice mass loss between 1979 and 2017.
*16 January A study i
Ecological Monographs
suggests there may be sustained foraging specialization, fasting and omnivory in the whale shark (''Rhincodon typus''), the world's largest fish.
*17 January
**Scientists report that '' Australopithecus sediba'' is distinct from, but shares anatomical similarities to, both the older '' Australopithecus africanus'', and the younger '' Homo habilis''.
**Astronomers report that a day on the planet Saturn has been determined to be  , based on studies of the planet's C Ring.
*21 January
** Scientists report that the Greenland ice sheet is melting four times faster than in 2003, with its largest sustained ice loss coming from the southwest region.
** Lunar eclipse
*22 January Alphabet's Waymo subsidiary announces that it will later in 2019 begin construction in the US State of Michigan on the World's first factory for mass-producing autonomous vehicles.
*23 January
**Scientists in China report the creation of five identical cloned gene-edited monkeys, using the same cloning technique that was used with Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua the first ever cloned monkeys and Dolly the sheep, and the same gene-editing CRISPR- Cas9 technique allegedly used by He Jiankui in creating the first ever gene-modified human babies Lulu and Nana. The genetically modified monkey clones were made in order to study several medical diseases.
**Astronomers report the first-ever detection of glycolonitrile, another possible building block of life among other such molecules, in outer space.

*24 January
**NASA announces that the ''Opportunity'' rover has been on the planet Mars for 15 years.
**NASA scientists report the discovery of the oldest known Earth rock on the Moon. Apollo 14 astronauts returned several rocks from the Moon and later, scientists determined that a fragment from one of the rocks contained "a bit of Earth from about 4 billion years ago." The rock fragment contained quartz, feldspar, and zircon, all common on the Earth, but highly uncommon on the Moon.
**The complete axolotl genome is reported to have been sequenced by the University of Kentucky.
*25 January AlphaStar, a new artificial intelligence algorithm by Alphabet's DeepMind subsidiary, defeats professional players of the real-time strategy game StarCraft II in ten rounds out of eleven.
*29 January Researchers at Purdue University's College of Engineering release a paper in the journal '' ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering'' detailing a new process to turn plastic waste in hydrocarbon fuels.
*30 January Scientists report that several types of humans, including Denisovans, Neanderthals and related hybrids, may have habitated the Denisova Cave in Siberia over thousands of years, but it is unclear whether they ever shared the cave.
*31 January
**Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, demonstrate a new form of 3D printer, which uses light exposure to transform a viscous liquid into complex solid objects.
**A new AI developed by RMIT University in Melbourne and trained to play the 1980s video game '' Montezuma's Revenge'' is reported to be 10 times faster than Google DeepMind and able to finish the game.

February

*1 February NASA scientists report that the Mars ''Curiosity'' rover determined, for the first time, the density of Mount Sharp in Gale crater, thereby establishing a clearer understanding of how the mountain was formed.
*3 February Medical scientists announce that iridium attached to albumin, creating a photosensitized molecule, can penetrate cancer cells and, after being irradiated with light (a process called photodynamic therapy), destroy the cancer cells.
*4 February A study by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development concludes that 36% of glaciers along the Hindu Kush and Himalaya range will disappear by 2100, even if carbon emissions are cut rapidly. Without emission reductions, the loss could reach two-thirds.
*5 February NASA reports that the two small communication CubeSats, that accompanied the InSight lander to the planet Mars, went silent, and are unlikely to be heard from again.
*6 February
**NASA and NOAA confirm that 2018 was the fourth hottest year on record globally, at 0.83 degrees Celsius (1.5 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1951 to 1980 mean.
**Scientists from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias publish the first evidence of a collision between exoplanets, which is believed to have occurred in the Kepler-107 system, approximately 1,670 light years from Earth.
*7 February
**Medical scientists working with Sangamo Therapeutics, headquartered in Richmond, California, announce the first ever "in body" human gene editing therapy to permanently alter DNA in a patient with Hunter syndrome. Clinical trials by Sangamo involving gene editing using Zinc Finger Nuclease (ZFN) are ongoing.
**The ExoMars rover, scheduled to launch in July 2020 and search for the existence of past life on the planet Mars, has been officially named the ''Rosalind Franklin'' rover after DNA pioneer Rosalind Franklin.
**Scientists announce the discovery of a new type of magnet that might benefit the performance of data storage technologies.

*8 February NASA scientists, studying the latest returned images and data, report that 486958 Arrokoth, the remote Kuiper Belt Object visited by the New Horizons spacecraft, was determined to be more flattened than thought earlier; and has been described to be more like a large "pancake" (larger lobe) and a "walnut" (smaller lobe), rather than two ellipsoids.
*11 February Scientists find evidence, based on genetics studies using artificial intelligence (AI), that suggest the existence of an unknown human ancestor species, not Neanderthal, Denisovan or human hybrid (like ''Denny'' (hybrid hominin)), in the genome of modern humans.
*13 February NASA officials declare that the Mars rover ''Opportunity'' has ended its mission, after failing to respond to repeated transmitted wake-up signals. Its last contact was on 10 June 2018 ( Click here for the last panorama image.)
*18 February
**A British woman becomes the first person in the world to have gene therapy for age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
**Scientists use gene therapy to restore hearing in an adult mouse model of DFNB9 deafness.
*19 February
**Researchers at Oxford Martin School publish evidence that, in the longer term, some forms of cultured meat could be worse for the environment than traditional farmed meat.
**Scientists report evidence, based on isotope studies, that at least some Neanderthals may have eaten meat.

*21 February
**Scientists announce a new form of DNA, named Hachimoji DNA, composed of four natural, and four unnatural nucleobases. Benefits of such an eight-base DNA system may include an enhanced ability to store digital data, as well as insights into what may be possible in the search for extraterrestrial life.
**Scientists report that the purportedly first-ever germline genetically edited humans, the twin babies Lulu and Nana, by Chinese researcher He Jiankui, may have inadvertently (or perhaps, intentionally) had their brains enhanced.
** SpaceX launches SpaceIL's ''Beresheet'' probe, the world's first privately financed mission to the Moon.
**Astronomers led by Scott S. Sheppard announce the discovery of FarFarOut, the most distant object yet found in the Solar System, at an estimated distance of 140 AU (21 billion km) from the Sun.
*25 February
**Scientists report evidence that Neanderthals walked upright much like modern humans.
**The first microSD card with a storage capacity of 1 terabyte (TB) is announced by Micron.
*26 February Researchers at RMIT University demonstrate a method of using a liquid metal catalyst to turn carbon dioxide gas back into coal, potentially offering a new way to store carbon in solid form.
*28 February
**Scientists report the first ever evidence of a former planet-wide groundwater system on the planet Mars.
**Scientists report the creation of mice with infrared vision, using nanoparticles injected into their eyes.

March

*3 March An uncrewed demonstration flight of the new crew capable version of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, intended to carry American astronauts into space, achieves successful autonomous docking with the International Space Station. It returned to Earth a few days later.

*4 March Scientists report that asteroids may be much more difficult to destroy than thought earlier. In addition, an asteroid may reassemble itself due to gravity after being disrupted.
*5 March
**A second case of sustained remission from HIV-1 is reported, ten years after the 'Berlin Patient.'
**Astronomers report the discovery of unusual dimming in EPIC 204376071, a star that has been observed to dim in brightness by up to 80%, much more deeply than the 22% dimming of Tabby's star.
*7 March Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) demonstrate a new optical imaging system that could enable the discovery of tiny tumours, as small as 200 cells, deep within the body.
*8 March Astronomers report that the mass of the Milky Way galaxy is 1.5 trillion solar masses within a radius of about 129,000 light-years, over twice as much as was determined in earlier studies, and suggesting that about 90% of the mass of the galaxy is dark matter.
*11 March A team of Japanese and Russian scientists report that cell nuclei from woolly mammoth remains showed biological activity when transplanted into mouse cells.
*13 March The laser of ELI-NP in Măgurele, part of the European ELI Project, becomes the most powerful laser system ever made, reaching a peak power of 10 Petawatts.
*15 March NASA reports that latent viruses in humans may be activated during space missions, adding possibly more risk to astronauts in future deep-space missions.

*16 March NASA announces that a 173-kiloton fireball (the Kamchatka meteor) fell over the Bering Sea near the Kamchatka Peninsula on 18 December 2018, the second largest asteroid to hit Earth in 30 years, after the Chelyabinsk meteor. (see image)
*18 March
**Researchers provide supporting evidence, based on genetic studies, that modern ''Homo sapiens'', arose first in South Africa more than 300,000 years ago, traveled to East Africa, and from there, about 60,000 years ago, traveled out of Africa to the rest of the world.
**Physicist Adrian Bejan presents an explanation of why time seems shorter as we get older, which can be attributed to "the ever-slowing speed at which images are obtained and processed by the human brain as the body ages."
*19 March
**Karen Uhlenbeck is reported to be the first woman to receive the prestigious Abel Prize in Mathematics.
**Astronomers describe scenarios where carbon monoxide may be a biosignature for a thriving community of extraterrestrial life on other worlds.
*20 March Paleontologists report the discovery of '' Avimaia schweitzerae'', the first fossil bird found with an unlaid egg, that lived about 115 million years ago in Northwest China.
*27 March
**Scientists report that life-forms from Earth survived 18 months living in outer space outside the International Space Station (ISS), as part of the BIOMEX studies related to the EXPOSE-R2 mission, suggesting that life could survive, theoretically, on the planet Mars.
** ESO astronomers, employing the GRAVITY instrument on their Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), announce the first direct detection of an exoplanet, HR 8799 e, using optical interferometry.
**Chinese scientists report inserting the human brain-related MCPH1 gene into laboratory rhesus monkeys, resulting in the transgenic monkeys performing better and answering faster on "short-term memory tests involving matching colors and shapes", compared to control non-transgenic monkeys, according to the researchers.
*28 March
**Researchers report the possibility of ancient life on the planet Mars based on microscopic studies of the Allan Hills 77005 (ALH-77005) Martian meteorite found on Earth.
**Scientists report evidence that suggests the planet Mars, in some near-equatorial regions, currently contains a deep groundwater system.
**A Pew Research Center study (4464 adults; mid-January 2019) on scientific knowledge among Americans finds substantial differences based on formal education level (higher is better), race and ethnicity (whites higher) and gender (males higher). No substantial differences were found based on political affiliation.
*29 March Paleontologists describe a site called Tanis, in North Dakota's Hell Creek Formation, containing animal and plant fossils dated to 65.76 million years BCE. These remains are embedded with tiny rock and glass fragments that fell from the sky in the minutes and hours following the Chicxulub impact. The deposits also show evidence of having been swamped with water, caused by the subsequent megatsunamis.

April

*1 April
**Scientists report confirming the presence of methane on the planet Mars, and determining that the source of the methane likely came from an ice sheet about 300 miles east of Gale Crater. The ''Curiosity'' rover is currently exploring Gale Crater.
**Scientists at ETH Zurich report the creation of the world's first bacterial genome, named '' Caulobacter ethensis-2.0'', made entirely by a computer, although a related viable form of ''C. ethensis-2.0'' does not yet exist.
*4 April NASA releases animated images of solar eclipses by the two moons of the planet Mars, Deimos ( animation1/17 March 2019) and Phobos ( animation2/27 March 2019), as viewed by the ''Curiosity'' rover on the planet Mars in March 2019.
*7 April NASA reports that a comprehensive study of microorganisms and fungi present on the International Space Station has been conducted. The results can be useful in improving health and safety conditions for astronauts.
*10 April Scientists from the Event Horizon Telescope project announce the first-ever image of a black hole, located 54 million light years away in the centre of the M87 galaxy.
* 10 April
**Scientists find a way to view reactions in "dark states" of molecules, i.e. those states that are normally inaccessible.
*11 April
**NASA announces that the ''Curiosity'' rover on the planet Mars drilled into, and closely studied, a " clay-bearing unit" which, according to the rover Project Manager, is a "major milestone" in ''Curiosity'' journey up Mount Sharp. ( related image)
**The Israeli ''Beresheet'' probe crashes on the Moon after a technical glitch causes its main engine to switch off.

*12 April NASA reports medical results, from an Astronaut Twin Study, where one astronaut twin spent a year in space on the International Space Station, while the other twin spent the year on Earth, which demonstrated several long-lasting changes, including those related to alterations in DNA and cognition, when one twin was compared with the other.
*16 April Scientists report, for the first time, the use of the CRISPR technology to edit human genes to treat cancer patients with whom standard treatments were not successful.
*17 April After a long search, astronomers report the detection of helium hydride, a primordial molecule thought to have been formed about 100,000 years after the Big Bang, for the first time in outer space in NGC 7027.
*23 April NASA reports that the Mars ''InSight'' lander detected its first Marsquake on the planet Mars. ( related AudioVideo file)
*24 April The XENON dark matter project announces that it has observed the radioactive decay of xenon-124, which has a half-life of 1.8 sextillion years.
*25 April Astronomers report further substantial discrepancies, depending on the measurement method used, in determining the Hubble constant, suggesting a realm of physics currently not well understood in explaining the workings of the universe.
*29 April Scientists, working with the Hubble Space Telescope, confirmed the detection of the large and complex ionized molecules of buckminsterfullerene (C₆₀) (also known as "buckyballs") in the interstellar medium spaces between the stars.
*30 April Biologists report that the very large medusavirus, or a relative, may have been responsible, at least in part, for the evolutionary emergence of complex eukaryotic cells from simpler prokaryotic cells.

May

*1 May A study by U.S. researchers finds that deleting the ATDC gene can prevent the growth of pancreatic cancer in mice.
*2 May
**Astronomers, from the Hubble Space Telescope, release the Hubble Legacy Field Zoom Out (video; 00:50), a 16-year effort, which provides a zoom out view from the Ultra Deep Field of galaxies to the Legacy Field of galaxies.
**A study of nearly 1,000 gay male couples who took antiretroviral therapy, published in ''The Lancet'', finds no cases of HIV transmission over eight years.
*3 May The UK's National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) and University of Leicester report the first generation of usable electricity from americium, which could lead to the development of "space batteries" that power missions for up to 400 years.
*6 May
**In its first report since 2005, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) warns that biodiversity loss is "accelerating", with over a million species now threatened with extinction; the decline of the natural living world is "unprecedented" and largely a result of human actions.
**Researchers at Columbia University report a new desalination method for hypersaline brines, known as "temperature swing solvent extraction (TSSE)", which is low-cost and efficient.
*8 May A British teenager, Isabelle Holdaway, 17, is reported to be the first patient to receive a genetically modified phage therapy to treat a drug-resistant infection.
*11 May Atmospheric CO₂, as measured by the Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii, reaches 415 parts per million (ppm), the highest level for 2.5 million years. During the late Pliocene, sea levels were up to 20 m higher, and the global climate was 3 °C hotter.
*14 May
**Computer security researchers at Graz University of Technology and Catholic University of Leuven, in a coordinated disclosure with Intel, announce the discovery of a group of Microarchitectural Data Sampling vulnerabilities, affecting millions of Intel microprocessors, which they named Fallout, RIDL (Rogue In-Flight Data Load) and ZombieLoad.
**Researchers at Microsoft reported the BlueKeep security vulnerability () (noted as "critical" by Microsoft) that may affect nearly one million computers using ''older'' versions (Windows 8 and Windows 10 are not affected) of the Windows operating systems with a " wormable" Remote Desktop Services (RDS) Remote Code Execution (RCE) Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) vulnerability. Microsoft recommends installing available update patches as soon as possible, and also recommends turning off Remote Desktop Services if they are not required.
**Researchers at Macquarie University report that plastic pollution is harming the growth, photosynthesis and oxygen production of ''Prochlorococcus'', the ocean's most abundant photosynthetic bacteria, responsible for 10% of oxygen breathed by humans.

*15 May
**Researchers, in a milestone effort, report the creation of a new synthetic (possibly artificial) form of viable life, a variant of the bacteria ''Escherichia coli'', by reducing the natural number of 64 codons in the bacterial genome to 59 codons instead, in order to encode 20 amino acids.
**Researchers at University of Nebraska Medical Center describe the role of TGF-beta type II signaling receptor (TGFBR2) in osteoarthritis, which plays a key role in the progression of the disease by regulating joint development. They also identify a potential new drug that could treat it.
*16 May
**Astronomers report their first results about 486958 Arrokoth, the Kuiper Belt object in the outer Solar System that the New Horizons space probe flew by in January 2019.
**Researchers from the University of Leeds report that nearly a quarter of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is now unstable, with melting of the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers now five times faster than 25 years previously.
*19 May
**Researchers at the University of Melbourne report an unusual slowdown in the growth of life expectancy in Australia, following 20 years of rapid increases.
**Physicists report that decay processes of quasiparticles in certain strongly interacting medium systems may be stopped entirely, which may help make such particles basically immortal.
*20 May
**Lawyers in China report, in light of the purported creation by Chinese scientist He Jiankui of the first gene-edited humans (see Lulu and Nana controversy), the drafting of regulations that anyone manipulating the human genome by gene-editing techniques, like CRISPR, would be held responsible for any related adverse consequences.
**The redefinition of the SI system of measurement adopted by the majority of countries in the world takes effect.

*21 May Researchers at McMaster University report the discovery of a new and more efficient method of storing vaccines in temperatures of up to 40 °C for weeks at a time.
*22 May
**Scientists report the discovery of a fossilized fungus, named '' Ourasphaira giraldae'', in the Canadian Arctic, that may have grown on land a billion years ago, well before plants were living on land.
** Superconductivity at very high pressure is observed at a temperature of -23 °C (-9 °F), a jump of about 50 degrees compared to the previous confirmed record, by researchers at the University of Chicago.
*23 May
**Researchers at the University of Southampton predict that the average (median) body mass of mammals will collectively reduce by 25 per cent over the next century, due to the impact of human activity.
**Astronomers report the discovery of a very large amount of water in the northern polar region of the planet Mars.
*27 May The last male Sumatran rhinoceros in Malaysia is reported to have died, leaving only one female in the country.
*28 May A team from the University of Minnesota and University of Massachusetts exceed the Sabatier maximum, with a 10,000-fold increase in the rate of chemical reactions, using waves to create an oscillating catalyst.

June

* June Heuglin's gazelle rediscovered in Eritrea.
* 3 June Researchers report that the purportedly first-ever germline genetically edited humans, the twin babies Lulu and Nana, by Chinese scientist He Jiankui, may have been mutated in a way that shortens life expectancy.
* 4 June Astronomers report the discovery of a star, named ASASSN-V J213939.3-702817.4, non-variable earlier, observed to be associated with a very unusual, deep dimming event. The star, in the Indus constellation, is about away.
* 6 June The International Astronomical Union (I.A.U), in celebration of its hundredth anniversary, in a project called '' IAU100 NameExoWorlds'', is reported to welcome countries of the world, to submit names for astronomical objects, particularly exoplanets and its host star, which would later be considered for official adoption by the organization.
* 10 June
**Scientists report that Ahuna Mons, a very high dome-shaped mountain on the dwarf planet Ceres, may have been formed by a plume of mud ejected from deep within the planet.
**A study by researchers from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, identifies nearly 600 plants that have disappeared since the Industrial Revolution more than twice the number of birds, mammals and amphibians combined with extinctions now occurring 500 times faster than the natural background rate.
* 11 June
**Astronomers report that the usual Hubble classification, particularly concerning spiral galaxies

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