5 Breakthroughs Which Rocked The Scientific World In 2017!

Science is important. Everything we have today: our lifestyle, our gadgets, our homes, our cities, our world is based on science and the progress which science has triggered all around us. Scientific progress is as important as oxygen, and we are fortunate enough that scientific community achieved some mind-blowing new breakthroughs, covering a range of fields from biology to quantum physics.

As part of our new year special, we present the top 5 breakthroughs of 2017, which rocked the scientific world:

Discovery of Metallic Hydrogen

Scientists have successfully created the ‘Holy Grail’ of Physics: Metallic Hydrogen. As per experts, this single discovery has the power to change everything related with space travel, because the fuel developed from this can be three times more powerful than the current form of fuel used for space travel. Hence, using the same amount of fuel, we can now travel even farther, exploring the deepest secrets of the space.

Cosmic Convergence

On August 17th, two neutron stars collided 130 million light-years away. This discovery has been hailed as one of the top scientific breakthroughs of 2017, as the cosmic convergence was captured by gamma-ray detectors and radio telescopes all over the world.

Co-discoverer Benoit Mours of France’s CNRS research institute said,

“We witnessed history unfolding in front of our eyes: two neutron stars drawing closer, closer … turning faster and faster around each other, then colliding and scattering debris all over the place,”

This is indeed jaw-dropping because now, scientists can understand how gold, platinum, mercury and other heavy elements were actually formed in the Universe!

Life Discovered at Atomic Level

Cryo–electron microscopy (cryo-EM) is a technique using which scientists can create freeze-frame images of complex molecules, as they collide and interact with each other. U.S. National Institutes of Health has set up network of cryo-EM around the world, which helped them to form near–atomic-resolution of images, which will help them to understand more about life formed at atomic level. This discovery has already won Nobel Prize.

Homo Sapiens Redefined

A human skull discovered in Morocco in 1961 was re-analysed in 2017 using some advanced Radiometric dating and the discovery has startled every scientist on this Earth! As per the new findings, the age of homo-sapiens has been pushed back by 100,000 years.

Researchers have now determined that the skull is 300,000 years old, which means humans are older than we had imagined,.

Revolutionary Gene Therapy

Gene therapy witnessed a quantum leap this year, as scientists treated a fatal inherited neuromuscular disease by adding genes to the spiral neurons of a new born baby.

If this not had been done, the baby would have died in two years.

Such advanced gene therapy hasn’t been done before, and this was one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs of the year. Now, doctors and scientists are confident that this method can be used for other genetic disorders as well.

Did we miss any scientific breakthrough? Do let us know by commenting right here!