This is a continuation of 16 of the most interesting science stories of 2016 in no particular order.
Number 9
Just as we were once again getting used to the idea our solar system only has eight planets, evidence emerged in 2016 that there are nine and it has nothing to do with giving Pluto back its status as many people would still like.
The revelation came in the form of a mathematical proof. Scientists have long wondered why the plane of the planets is tilted approximately six degrees. A large body 10 times the mass of Earth and orbiting 20 times further out than Neptune at an angle of 30 degrees would explain it.
It came to light when researchers at the University of Arizona tried to explain the orbits of six distant Kuiper belt objects, which mysteriously all line up in a single direction. They hypothesized a resonance with an unseen planet.
The idea something like that exists that we have not yet discovered is fantastical, but just goes to show how vast space is. Even in our own tiny outpost in the galaxy, never mind the universe, surprises may still await.
Pesky buggers
Since the vast majority of people had never heard of the mosquito-borne Zika virus until 2015, it is somewhat surprising it was first identified in 1947 in Africa—but was likely with us long before—and spread to the Americas around 2007. There is nothing like a massive international sporting event, however, to set off panic.
As related infectious diseases go, Zika is relatively mild, except when it isn’t. That is to say, 80 per cent of the time, victims are asymptomatic. One in five times, it leads to Zika fever, which again, is a relatively minor condition akin to mild flu. It can, however, lead to microcephaly (reduced head size) and serious brain anomalies in infants who contract it through their mothers while in the womb.
In January, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a major outbreak of Zika in Brazil—which was preparing for the 2016 Summer Olympics—a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. That led to a lot of drama among the media and athletes, but little in the way of actual consequences. In November, WHO announced the end of the epidemic. It has apparently become endemic in the Americas, however. As recently as December 14, the Centres for Disease Control issued advisories for Brownsville, Texas and Miami-Dade County, Florida.
There has been no transmission reported for Canada to date.
Dad and mom and mom?
Nothing engenders controversy quite like “playing God.” Fortunately, that doesn’t stop researchers from making massive advancements in reproductive technology such as the first baby born this year from three parents.
The three-parent idea is erroneous. It is attention-grabbing headline fodder that does not exactly mirror reality. In fact, in this child, born in April, all of the genomic DNA, the 46 chromosomes that govern genetic traits, came from the two actual parents.
Mothers also pass on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). In the case of this mother, her mtDNA contains a mutation that causes a fatal neurological condition that has killed two of her children and led to four miscarriages.
The technique involves transferring the nucleus (containing genomic DNA) from an egg from the mother into an egg from a donor with healthy mitochondria. The resulting egg is fertilized by the father’s sperm with long-standing in-vitro techniques.
Not alone
It is hard to believe that just a few short years ago, Earth was not only the only habitable planet we knew of, but the eight planets in our solar system were the only ones we knew of, period.
Now scientists have discovered thousands of planets, and evidence is solar systems with planets may be the rule rather than the exception.
In fact, our nearest stellar neighbour, a red-dwarf star called Proxima Centauri has a rocky planet, just 1.3 times the mass of Earth that orbits in the star’s “habitable zone.” Research now suggests Proxima b, as it has been dubbed, likely has a liquid ocean and similar atmosphere to Earth.
With each passing discovery, it is becoming less and less likely that we are alone in the universe. Life is more likely a condition that exists everywhere.
Missing link
The timeline of evolutionary history is well established, but sometimes the mechanisms that drove that history are murky at best. What we know is that approximately one billion to 600 million years ago, the first multicellular organisms emerged, allowing for the evolution of complex life including humans.
What we do not, or at least did not, know is how intracellular functions became intercellular cooperation. In January of this year, a team of scientists associated with the University of Chicago and University of Oregon identified a mutation by which a protein known as GKPID may have been repurposed from a communication mechanism within colonies of single-celled organisms to govern interactions between cells and form our ancestral multi-celled organisms.
I am not even going to pretend to understand it any better than that, but it is very exciting that there are people who do.
Tragic beliefs
Arguments against “alternative” and “complementary” medicine are often greeted with the ignorant question, “what’s the harm?” In November, we were reminded all too tragically, that the harm is sometimes the unnecessary death of children when 47-year-old Tamara Lovett of Calgary went on trial for failing to provide the necessaries of life to her 7-year-old son in 2013, which resulted in his death.
Instead of taking him to see a doctor for a strep infection, this woman tried to treat him with dandelion tea and oregano oil. The boy did not have a birth certificate and had never seen a doctor because his mother didn’t “believe” in conventional medicine.
How many kids have to die before we put the “natural” fallacy in its rightful place?
Cretaceous Park?
A find of a dinosaur tail bone complete with feathers preserved in amber was one of the most exciting finds of the year. For some time we have known that Therapod dinosaurs did not actually go extinct as once thought, but evolved into birds.
This latest find of a 99 million-year-old coeluosaur’s vertebrae is the most remarkable and conclusive link so far between modern birds and their predecessors. Analysis of the feathers also provides further evidence that feathers played a different role for dinosaurs, perhaps insulation, than flight.
The story also brought back the idea that fossils preserved in amber might be a source of DNA that could lead to the re-animation of ancient species. This is not possible, however, as DNA degrades rapidly. In fact, at an average temperature of 13 C, DNA has a half-life of only 521 years.
Straw man
Anti-GMO activists this year touted a court ruling that a researcher had been defamed as proof GM foods are toxic.
Gilles-Eric Seralini is a French molecular biologist, who, in 2012, published a study connecting an increase in tumours in rats fed GM corn and the pesticide RoundUp.
It was an egregiously poor study that the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology retracted because regulatory agencies found the study was flawed and its findings unsubstantiated.
Seralini sued a journalist named Jean-Claude Jaillet and the magazine Marianne for libel accusing the writer of fraud and a French court ruled in the scientist’s favour.
It is a fallacious tactic to equate the court result with validation of the man’s research, however, because they have nothing to do with each other except superficially.
