30 Amazing Scientific Discoveries Confirmed In 2016
2016 wasn't all bad, we got ahead in science class at least.
2016 wasn't all bad, we got ahead in science class at least.
1
There are strange, metallic sounds coming from the Mariana Trench, the deepest point on Earth’s surface. Scientists currently think the noise is a new kind of baleen whale call.
2
Tardigrades are so indestructible because they have a built-in toolkit to protect their DNA from damage. These tiny creatures can survive being frozen for decades, can bounce back from total desiccation, and can even handle the harsh radiation of space.
3
The Antarctic ozone hole is finally showing signs of healing, nearly 30 years after the Montreal Protocol came into effect.
4
Cod might have regional accents.
5
Some red squirrels in Britain carry a strain of leprosy seen in humans in the Middle Ages.
6
Some of the biggest and clearest diamonds probably formed in liquid metal hundred of miles below the surface of Earth.
7
There’s an Earth-like planet just 4.2 light-years away in the Alpha Centauri star system – and scientists are already planning a mission to visit it.
8
The largest known prime number is 274,207,281– 1, which is a ridiculous 22 million digits in length. It’s 5 million digits longer than the second largest prime.
9
Pluto’s atmosphere is more compact and cold than we previously thought.
10
Pear-shaped atomic nuclei exist, and they make time travel seem pretty damn impossible.
11
A revolutionary new type of nuclear fusion machine being trialled in Germany really works, and could be the key to clean, unlimited energy.
12
The North Pole is slowly moving towards London, due to the planet’s shifting water content.
13
There might be a ninth planet in our Solar System (no, Pluto doesn’t count).
14
One third of the planet can no longer see the Milky Way from where they live.
15
It was probably soot that killed the dinosaurs.
16
There are two liquid states of water.
17
Earth has a second mini-moon orbiting it, known as a ‘quasi-satellite’. It’s called 2016 HO3.
18
Human penises might have lost their baculum, aka penis bone, when our species became monogamous.
19
There’s a giant, 1.5-billion-cubic-metre (54-billion-cubic-foot) field of precious helium gas in Tanzania.
20
Gravitational waves are real. More than 100 years after Einstein first predicted them, researchers finally detected the elusive ripples in space time this year. We’ve now seen three gravitational wave events in total.
21
Artificial Intelligence can beat humans at Go.
22
It’s possible to turn carbon dioxide into stone – if you pump it into underground volcanic rocks in Iceland.
23
Cloned animals can age healthily – four clones of the original cloned sheep, Dolly, have lived to old age with no obvious long-term health issues.
24
The first written record demonstrating the laws of friction has been hiding inside Leonardo da Vinci’s “irrelevant scribbles” for the past 500 years.
25
Crows actually have enormous and terrifying ears.
26
Earth lost enough sea ice this year to cover the entire land mass of India.
27
It turns out there are actually four species of giraffe, not just one.
28
Ducklings can recognize the concepts of “same” and “different.”
29
Scientists have found evidence of a whole bunch of supernovae – when stars explode at the end of their life – that happened in our cosmic neighborhood around 2 million years ago.
30
Sloths almost die every time they poop (which is only once a week), and it looks terrifying.
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